New Delhi, India

Indian Independence Day is here, and it would not be wrong to call it a festive week for the tinsel town, with Bollywood offering plenty of options for the audience hwading to theatres. This week, we have three major releases: Akshay Kumar's Khel Khel Mein, Rajkummar Rao's Stree 2 and John Abraham's Vedaa. 

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In brief, Nikkhil Advani's Vedaa is a regular macho-man movie that Indian audiences have watched several times over the years. While the presentation has always been different, updated and changed over time, the story is the one thing that B-town directors and writers have kept close to their hearts, vowing to never change it. However, Advani has made this regular movie an entertaining watch.

How? Read on to find it

Vedaa: A Typical Bollywood Action-Packed Movie

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Set in Barmer, a small town in the north Indian state of Rajasthan, the story revolves around Major Abhimanyu Kanwar (John Abraham), who has been court-martialed after he took revenge for his wife's death. Leaving his army life behind, Abhimanyu returns to his late wife's town, where he starts working as a boxing coach and meets Vedaa (Sharvari), a girl with eyes full of dreams, who wants to learn boxing and achieve something big in life.

In a city where caste discrimination exists at its core, Vedaa, being a Dalit girl, has to go through a lot, and her biggest hurdle is Suyog (Kshitij Chauhan), the young brother of the village leader Jitender (Abhishek Banerjee).

Despite being abused by Suyog, Vedaa continues to learn boxing with her 'coach ji'. However, Vedaa and her family's lives are turned upside down when her brother elopes with a girl from the upper-caste community, questioning centuries-old societal norms. After this incident, Abhimanyu is the only person who steps out to help Vedaa and save her from the army of goons, who are after her life like mad dogs. How Abhimanyu saves Vedaa's life, makes up the rest of the violent-infused plot. 

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Inspired by true events, Advani presents the movie on caste discrimination effectively, highlighting the struggle that people from low castes still have to go through, and are bound to follow the rules set by kangaroo courts.

Written by Aseem Arora, the story is something that you are very well aware of - a girl fighting against all odds to bring justice to her family with the help of a man who can fight against the sea of people and survive even after being shot multiple times. 

However, what makes this typical Bollywood saga interesting is its focus on caste discrimination, shedding light on the heinous killings of young inter-caste couples and echoing the sentiments of this section of society in modern India. 

The camera work and music contribute significantly to making this movie a gripping watch. However, that doesn't mean that you will watch the entire 150-minute movie without blinking an eye - there are plenty of meaningless and heroic moments that might make you yawn and glance here and there in the movie hall.  

When John Abraham is in a movie, action is something that definitely would not bore you. Not just him, the action and the intense scenes involving Sharvari, and Abhishek Banerjee are well-executed too.

But after a decent start, the movie meanders through melodrama, before landing on heavy action with dozens of killings.  

Abraham as an atheist, raw man delivers an earnest performance, with top-notch action scenes. However, it's high time that the actor take a break from playing the role of action-soldier hero. After a point, it feels like he's playing the same character again and again in different movies.

I watched and loved Sharvari in Munjya and Maharaj, but here she has given one of her best and most genuine performances.

I watched two movies of Abhishek Banerjee back-to-back, first Vedaa, as the antagonist Jitendra Pratak Singh. And, the next is Stree 2 as Jana.

Both characters are so different from each other. But, Abhishek's performance in both films was clap-worthy, although I have always loved him more in a negative role. 

So obviously, I loved him in Vedaa more - the tension and aura he brought to the role were impressive. Kshitij Chauhan as Suyog Pratap Singh, on the other hand, has given a decent performance. 

I'm not usually a fan of action and macho-man films, but I still enjoyed Vedaa for its action scenes and performances.

Vedaa is a typical Bollywood movie with entertaining old macho fun.