The Ghazi Attack

The Ghazi Attack
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Sankalp Reddy
Produced by	Anvesh Reddy Venkatramana Reddy Prasad V Potluri NM Pasha Jagan Mohan Vancha
Written by	Azad Alam Gangaraju Gunnam
Screenplay by	Sankalp Reddy Gangaraju Gunnam Niranjan Reddy
Starring	Rana Daggubati Atul Kulkarni Kay Kay Menon Taapsee Pannu Rahul Singh Satyadev Kancharana
Narrated by	Chiranjeevi (Telugu) Amitabh Bachchan (Hindi) Suriya (Tamil)
Music by	K
Cinematography	R. Madhi
Edited by	A. Sreekar Prasad
Production company	PVP Cinema Matinee Entertainment
Distributed by	Dharma Productions AA Films
Release date	17 February 2017 (2017-02-17)
Running time	123 minutes
Country	India
Language	Telugu Hindi
Budget	₹15 Crore[1]
Box office	₹34.53 Crore[1]

The Ghazi Attack is a 2017 Indian war film written, and directed by Sankalp Reddy.^[2][3][4] The film based on the mysterious sinking of PNS Ghazi during Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 is shot simultaneously in Telugu and Hindi and dubbed into Tamil.^[5] The film stars Rana Daggubati, Taapsee Pannu, Kay Kay Menon and Atul Kulkarni.^[6][7][8][9] The film was released worldwide on 17 February 2017 to positive reviews.^[10][11][12]

The Ghazi Attack is inspired by true events from the Indo-Pakistani war of 1971.^[13] The story is about an executive naval officer of the Indian Submarine^[14] and his team, who remain underwater for 18 days.^[15] The film explores the mysterious circumstances under which submarine PNS Ghazi sank off the coast of Visakhapatnam in 1971.^[16] The film is an underwater tale of the courage and patriotism of the men aboard the Indian Submarine INS Karanj who destroyed the Pakistani PNS Ghazi when it ventured into Indian waters to destroy INS Vikrant that can be found on the shore of R.K.Beach, Visakhapatnam.^[17][18][19]

Plot

The Indian Navy dispatches S21, a submarine, under the command of Capt Ranvijay Singh (Kay Kay Menon) for surveillance. Singh, an officer with a history of insubordination, is a bellicose soldier who believes in attacking the enemy rather than defending the territory when the enemy is close. To temper Singh's belligerent tendencies, the Indian Navy Admiral, assigns Lt. Commander Arjun Verma (Rana Daggubati) to be his deputy, with orders to ensure that Singh does not confront any Pakistani vessel and triggering an unnecessary war. Meanwhile, the Pakistani Navy dispatches PNS Ghazi, a much more advanced submarine than S21 or any other Indian submarine, to sink the sole Indian air-craft carrier, INS Vikrant.

Days pass as S21 does the routine surveillance, but they find nothing. Then suddenly, they get a Sonar signal which comes from a sunk merchant ship, blasted by Ghazi. Arjun goes overboard and saves two survivors, a girl child and a woman(Taapsee Pannu), revealed later to be Bangladeshi refugees.

Here, we are shown that there is a clash of power between Singh and Arjun about how to proceed with the mission. Singh believes that they should track down Ghazi and attack, while Arjun was ordered not to let Singh do so. The ship's XO, Devraj (Atul Kulkarni) tries to make peace between the two men.

Devraj needs both Arjun and Singh’s orders for launching torpedo but Arjun does not give his permission because of his orders. Singh then orders Devraj to conduct a drill and target Ghazi while doing so. Devraj orders the crew to do the same since drills can be done under the Captain's sole command. They miss their target by 200m and in the process alerting Ghazi of their position. Ghazi's Captain, Razak, orders his crew to head towards Vishakhapatnam port at full speed and to set up mines en-route so that S21 is destroyed in their pursuit.

S21 begins to trace and pursue Ghazi's path and the crew realizes at the last moment that they are headed into mines. It tries to change its course but one of the mine is triggered and explodes. It damages most of the batteries, propellers and circuits and compartment no.1 (the compartment in which the controls of the front torpedoes) of the submarine is flooded. Some of the crew die and Capt Singh dies while trying to save Arjun and Devraj is also severely injured. S21 sinks to the sea-bed (400m). Ghazi, with its Sonar unable to detect anything below 300m range, assumes the S21 is completely destroyed.

Meanwhile, the crew members of S21 are regrouping and work towards reviving S21. Arjun, who by now is in charge of the mission,tells the crew to use compressed air to decrease their depth at sea. The crew notices that the propellers are not working, rendering the ship incapable of moving in any direction, except up or down. Since they cannot chase Ghazi, they decide to opt a course of action which forces Ghazi to come back to the point they are stuck at. The S21 crew artificially trigger the remaining Ghazi mine in its vicinity by using the concept of acoustic resonance. S21 then waits for Ghazi to return. As predicted, Ghazi returns to reconnaissance. Razak, sensing that Ghazi could be walking into a trap, diverts the his ship's path and changes the course of approach. Due to this change in course, Ghazi is no longer in S21's torpedo path but S21 instead is now in Ghazi's torpedo path.

Six torpedoes fired by Ghazi are avoided by S21 through simple depth changing manoeuvers. Ghazi by now has depleted its aft torpedoes. After Ghazi's sixth aft torpedo is fired, the critically damaged S21 dives to 350m so that it is no longer within Ghazi's sonar range. This is despite the S21 being only designed for a maximum of 250m depth. S21 also has very limited battery support for it to stay hidden from Ghazi. Captain Razak also decides to play the waiting game, although he is not aware of S21's dire situation. With time running out, Arjun decides to instigate Ghazi into attacking by transmitting his crew singing 'Saare Jahaan se Achchha' and the Indian National Anthem. Riled up by S21's defiance, Razak orders another torpedo attack on S21, for which Ghazi will have to turn by 180 degrees so that it can use it's bow torpedoes. Unknown to Razak, with this manoeuver Ghazi is now inside S21's extremely restricted aft torpedoes firing path. However, S21's aft torpedoes by now only can be launched manually due to Compartment 1 being totally flooded. Arjun, decides to dive into Compartment 1 to manually trigger the torpedoes, knowing that he might drown in the process. Arjun dives into Compartment 1 and successfully triggers an aft torpedo. Ghazi also launches its bow torpedo at the same time. The Ghazi torpedo misses S21 narrowly, but it is hit by S21 aft torpedo and disintegrates in water, thus ending the stand-off. Arjun is later saved alive from the flooded Compartment 1. The movie ends with XO Devraj waving the national flag on a surfaced S21, signalling an Indian Navy Vessel. The epilogue indicates that the day after the Ghazi incident, Pakistani fighters bomb Indian airfields, marking the beginning of the 1971 Indo-Pak war for liberation of Bangladesh.

Cast

Production

Development

PVP Cinema is producing the film.^[20][21] Karan Johar will distribute the Hindi version.^[22] The music is composed by K.^[23] Visual Effects handled by Eva Motion Studios.

Casting and crew

The film stars Rana Daggubati^[24] and Taapsee Pannu^[25][26] in the lead along with Kay Kay Menon,^[27] Satyadev Kancharana,^[28] Atul Kulkarni,Ramanuj Dubey, Kunal Kaushik,Priyadarshi Pulikonda, Rahul Singh, Akshay Mittal, Malyaban Lahiri and Naren Yadav.^[29] Cinematography is done by Madhi, music composed by K ,Visual Effects Supervisor Vasudeva R Enugala and editing by Sreeker Prasad.^[30][31]

Filming

The film shooting started on 3 January 2016.^[32][33]

Actual events

Indian Navy claims to have sunk the PNS Ghazi on December 4, 1971 at the Vishakhapatnam harbour when then Captain Inder Singh of INS Rajput ordered the attack upon it. However the Pakistani Navy dispute the claim; as Pakistan Navy believes the Submarine must have sunk due to it mistakenly entering its own minefield and collided with one of the mines, which resulted in the explosion.^[34]

Release

Ghazi was released worldwide on 17 February 2017.

Box office

The Ghazi Attack (Hindi) grossed ₹34.53 crore (US$5.4 million) overall, including ₹28 crore (US$4.4 million) in India and $975,000 overseas.^[1]

References

External links

• The Ghazi Attack on IMDb
• The Ghazi Attack at Rotten Tomatoes