Movie: Ae Watan Mere Watan

Cast: Sara Ali Khan, Emraan Hashmi, Sparsh Shrivastav, Anand Tiwari

Director: Kannan Iyer

Producer: Karan Johar

Watch: Amazon Prime Video 

Rating: 2/5 Stars 

Movie Review: Ae Watan, Mere Watan could have done well with fine-tuning. In 1942, as Mahatma Gandhi proclaimed his “do or die” dictum, the resistance against the British Raj reached its momentum. 

We meet the young Usha Mehta( Sara Ali Khan) the daughter of a barrister Sachin Khedekar. He encourages his daughter to spread her wings and brings her a radio that connects her to the rest of the world. Little does he realise, he has fuelled her curiosity, and given her the tool for rebellion.

Inspired by Mahatma Gandhi, and Congress ideology young Usha too, along with her friends does her bit to free her country from its colonial shackles. The leaders of the Quit India Movement are in jail. Her pro-British judge father laments, that only the Raj can discipline India, Usha is a rebel with a cause. Even though her father asks her to choose between him and her mission, she is clear, her heart beats for her country.

Along with her close friends and fellow young patriots, Kaushik (Abhay Verma) and Fahad (Sparsh Srivastav), Usha hits upon using the radio as an instrument of rebellion and launches a radio station as her form of rebellion. They get the backing of Congress leader Ram Manohar Lohia (Emraan Hashmi), who has managed to evade arrest.

Kannan Iyer’s Ae Watan, Mere Watan plays homage to Usha Mehta, the founder of the Congress Radio. Usha Mehta, a Gandhian was one of the many unsung yet feisty women who led the struggle for independence from the front. 

Its sepia-tinted frame evokes nostalgia for the ardour and passion of the youth, where men and women marched along in the fight for independence, but it falls short in its documentation on many aspects. 

It is slow and falls into the familiar” we have seen it before terrain” in its storytelling.

Despite its rich source material and the premise of a young girl who finds expression and stays true to her conviction, the film lags in its execution. The aspect of using the radio as a form of rebellion could have been cleverly told, but the writing and treatment lose steam, and the dialogues are typical and banal.

Sara Ali Khan has had two back-to-back releases. From playing the girl around town in Murder Mubarak, the actor does her best to bring forth the fearlessness and spitfire personality of Usha in “Ae Watan, Mere Watan”. However, her character along with that of Emraan Hashmi’s Ram Manohar Lohia, and many others fails to make a lasting impression. 

“Ae Watan, Mere Watan” tries too hard and becomes a long monotonous lesson and could have done with some fine-tuning, and does little to bring forth the high frequency of this chapter in history.