IslandGuru Who payed the critics

Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

ScoobyMint Disappointment for a huge fan!

Inadvands Boring, over-political, tech fuzed mess

jmathur_swayamprabha Quality wise, Soldier is hitherto the best product of Abbas Mustan in my opinion because it contains everything that we want to see in a good suspense movie and it never defies logic like certain of their later ventures. Plus they have maintained the Indian faith in the moral values in this movie which presents an altogether different picture of the Indian (military) services adored by the us for protecting our frontiers.The story of Soldier starts with the corrupt practice of selling the military weapons to the underworld by certain people in the army and the honest soldier - Captain Vijay Malhotra (Pankaj Dheer) gets killed by the corrupt ones - Prataap Singh (Suresh Oberai), Virender Sinha (Daleep Taahil), Baldev Sinha (Sarat Saxena) etc. The leader of the baddies is a mysterious person - DK (whose identity becomes known in the end only). Virender's wife - Shaanti (Farida Jalaal) gets too much aggrieved by her husband's evil deed and she leaves him. Virender migrates to Australia with the bad money earned leaving Shaanti behind who now takes care of the widow of Vijay Malhotra - Geeta (Raakhee Gulzaar) who has lost her mental balance following her husband's killing and tainting of his name for arms smuggling thereafter.Years pass. And now a mysterious person Vicky (Bobby Deol) comes into picture. He goes after the baddies one-by-one and in between comes across Prataap Singh's daughter - Preeti (Preity Zinta) also. Love blossoms between them on one hand whereas some mysterious and deceptive incidents start taking place with the villains who are rich businessmen now on the other. Vicky is tricky and he makes Virender and his younger brother - Baldev believe that he is Virender's son. But the subsequent events tell that it couldn't be. Then who's Vicky ? And who is DK, the ringleader of the baddies ? Everything gets clarified in the climax only.The USP of Soldier is its gripping script and taut direction which does not allow the audience to pause and think anywhere during the movie. The fast paced narrative keeps the spectators glued to the screen until the complete mystery gets unravelled. Starting on the routine idealistic note of a tussle between a good man and some bad men, the movie soon picks up speed as the narrative leaps ahead by many years and the real thrill begins. Then there is no looking back either for the filmmakers or for the viewer. Despite the relief moments provided through comedy (by Johnny Lever) and romance (through lovely Preity and melodious songs), the narrative moves fast towards the ultimate destination with several jerks kept in store by the director duo for the spectator. The twists and turns surprise him and amuse him as well.Personally I admire Abbas Mustan for picking up this plot itself in the first place. In our country, the philosophies of 'Holier than thou' and 'Pot calling the kettle black' prevail like anything. Every agency or institution is just too much interested in blaming the other one but none is genuinely interested in introspection. Let others improve, why should we ? And that's the biggest problem of corruption-ridden India. Military services are respected a lot and the brave soldiers who put their own lives at stake to protect the nation from any external threat are no less than God for the commonfolks of India. But ! There is no dearth of corruption in the armed forces. Not only the corrupt politicians get kickbacks in major arms-related deals but this canker has hit the military people themselves also. Abbas Mustan has done the rightest thing by making it as the beginning point of this suspense-thriller. Through the idealistic character of Shaanti, they have highlighted that the true patriots keep the nation and the ideals of life above even the closest of relationships.Besides, the movie is very high on the entertainment scale. In addition to the spellbinding suspense; through the track of Johnny Lever and the characters of Baldev and his son (Jeetu Verma), the directors have presented healthy and clean comedy (unlike the vulgar comedy of Anil Kapoor and his female assistants in 'RACES'). There are laughs aplenty for the audience in this movie. The romantic track of Bobby and Preity has been given ample footage and this young pair amuses as well as tickles the romantic spots in the young hearts through its interactions.Like all Abbas Mustan movies, Soldier also maintains a high production value and quite in line with their habit, the directors have picturized certain quality scenes of the movie on a cruise and also under the sea. Technically the movie is superb and all the action and thrill sequences have been well executed. Editing is sharp and though the movie spans for more than two hours and forty minutes, this length is nowhere felt because of the non-stop entertainment coming from the screen.Anu Malik has prepared admirable songs with the help of Sameer's lyrics. The best song is Tera Rang Balle Balle which alongwith the title track (Soldier Soldier) was a chartbuster. Other songs viz. Mere Dil Jigar Se Guzri Hai, Mere Khwaabon Mein Jo Aaye, Mehfil Mein Baar Baar Unn Pe Nazar Gayi, Hum To Dil Chaahen Tumhaara etc. are also ear-soothing ones.This male-oriented movie belongs to Bobby Deol and it's a showcase of his talent. He has utilized this opportunity optimally to demonstrate his all-round capabilities including his comic timing. Preity Zinta, true to her name, looks very pretty and she has performed well also. The complete supporting cast including the veterans like Raakhee Gulzaar and Farida Jalaal have done complete justice to the assigned roles.I wholeheartedly recommend this admirable suspense-thriller to the movie buffs of all categories.

MovieInspector This is easily one of Bobby Deol's best performances,if not his best performance. This was actually Preity Zinta's first film, though Dil Se was released before this so that was her debut. She has given one of her best performances in this film too. The film is very cleverly made. After a lot of the key moments, there is a song. You can't even fast forward it because you want to be told what happens next and not tell yourself. The climax is brilliant, and you don't expect what happens in the end to happen. The music is great, though the best track has to be, you guessed it, 'Soldier Soldier...'. Another good thing is that you don't know what each character is up to, so some of the events are surprising. The screenplay is great and it has been edited very well. What more can I say? Watch it yourself.Verdict: Unmissable. The films these days very straightforward in comparison; they should make more like this. I give it 9/10

silvan-desouza Abbas-Mustan after making hit thrillers like KHILADI(92), BAAZIGAR(1993) and then making flops like DARAAR(1997) came with SOLDIER which did well at the Box OfficeThe plot?Well reminds us of BAAZIGAR wherein they are wrongs being done on Bobby's father.etc The main plot is that Bobby is an assassin who is paid to kill people but actually he plans to seek revenge from the main traitors of our society and kills them slowlyThe film has a done to death yet quite good plot for 1990's but sadly it lacks the edge of seat thriller impact There is too much focus on comedy(Johny Lever and that long haired goon, Sharat Saxena.etc and also romance between Preity and Bobby) it takes almost half the film on that and then the film shifts to an action genre with thrills in between like the death scenes There are also scenes lifted from Hollywood like Bobby entering the building of Sharat Saxena and many more The film does keep you involved in parts but the climax is too filmy and too overdoneDirection by Abbas-Mustan though not as good as BAAZIGAR yet a good film Music is goodBobby Deol changed his image with this film and it suited him sadly he was made to do hammy comic and romance acts in this film too yet he stands out in serious scenes though he looks dull in some emotive scenes Yet a good job, After a dismissal act in GUPT Preity was annoying for her debut and her voice was dubbed by someone else Amongst rest Suresh Oberoi is good, Ashish Vidhyarthi is okay Johny annoys, Sharat Saxena and his son(the usual nonsense actor from AM films) ham it up, Dalip Tahil is adequate Farida and Rakhee are typecast

M Roy As far as story goes, there was absolutely nothing original about this film. It just seemed to be a tired old typical Bollywood plot - honourable guy gets killed in the line of duty leaving a widow and child, child grows up to take revenge on those responsible, falling in love with the wrong girl in the process! What happens in between, in this film anyway, is all rather tiresome and gave me a real sense of déjà vu and not in a nice way! Surprisingly (or maybe not - this is Bollywood after all) the plot leaves you totally confused in some places as to who is who and who is not who they're supposed to be and who is really whose son! There I've confused myself again - just be glad it's me trying to work it out and not you - you'd get a headache!Bobby Deol might be cute to look at but I've always found him rather hammy as an actor. He's tall and muscular and suited to this type of role but his acting skills in 1998 (even though one of his earlier films) and acting skills in more recent movies don't seem to have changed. I guess it's always difficult living up to a famous actor of a dad, Dharmendra, who I found somewhat "hammy" even in his best of films (1000s of Bollywood fans would totally disagree with me, mind you)!This was one of Preity Zinta's first films and thank God she picked better roles after this as her character didn't have much to do in this film except look pretty and she was worth so much more than that even back in 1998! Zinta won the Filmfare and Screen Weekly Awards in 1999 for her role in the film as Best Newcomer and Most Promising Newcomer respectively. Although Zinta gives it her all to convince us that her character is in love with her leading man, his almost buffoon like acting prevented me from taking them seriously and it therefore made them on screen romance look rather forced. On the one hand, he's supposed to be a soldier out for vengeance and on the other hand, he's dancing around trees romancing his target's daughter? Are we really supposed to stomach that?! I was rather disappointed with Raakhee in Soldier. She has become rather typecast in recent years, since she became too old to play the leading lady herself as the weeping, grieving, whining mother or mother-figure of the hero or heroine of films. I was rather bored every time she appeared on screen in this film to be quite honest and to add insult to injury I never found her to be appealing even back when she played the heroine in films. She just has a miserable sounding voice and mostly did roles where she had to deal with some sort of tragedy in her life… Dalip Tahil (he of short lived UK soap Eastenders fame as Dan Ferreira) and Sharat Saxena were painful to watch as the bad guys. Like in other films Tahil has appeared in and to a lesser extent Saxena they both came across as pantomime baddies! I wanted to shout BOOOO when the appeared on the screen. Suresh Oberoi can pull off a decent enough bad guy (if that's a contradiction in terms, I do apologise) but I'm more used to seeing him as a good guy so I didn't quite buy him as a villain.I did feel (as with many other Bollywood films I've seen and relentlessly reviewed) that there were too many songs in the film which dragged it out even more than was already acceptable and they were mostly placed at totally inopportune moments! I can't say that I would recognise a single song from the film should I hear one again.Oh and did I forget to mention Johnny Lever as the token comedian? Well I should have forgotten to mention him for all the additional entertainment he tried but failed to bring to the film! As I've gone to the effort of mentioning the annoying comedian I might as well mention that the music included playback singers such as: Sonu Nigan, Kumar Sanu & Alka Yagnik.If I have to say something positive about the film apart from that fact that the beautiful and talented Preity Zinta was in it; I would have to say that there was some nice scenery in the film which didn't go all the way to redeeming the film but definitely didn't hurt the film.One thing which was unclear to me by the end of the film (which made more sense nearer the start) was why the film was called Soldier. The thriller aspect of the film was supposed to be suspenseful but personally I didn't find it at all suspenseful and pretty much guessed the ending at the halfway point and was really hoping that the storyline called for some sort of surprise ending, which disappointingly it didn't!