Kabir (Hrithik Roshan), the edgy loner of Yash Raj Films' "Spy Universe", was last seen at the end of Tiger 3 accepting a dangerous undercover mission in order to defeat a mysterious and terrifying enemy; his mentor Colonel Luthra (Ashutosh Rana) warns him that the mission will test him, blurring the lines between good and evil and requiring him to perform terrible deeds in order to safeguard India. And as War 2 (2025) opens, it seems that Luthra was right. Kabir is working as a one man mercenary battalion, slicing his way through a katana-infested Japanese temple in order to eliminate his target, befriending a wolf and blowing up a helicopter along the way.
Kabir meets his contact in Germany, and she tells him that from now on he'll be working for a secret organization called Kali. After the customary drugging and kidnapping, Kabir wakes up in a secret lair and discovers that Kali is an international cartel with members from all of the countries surrounding India, and that they like to protect their identities by teleconferencing with high tech red shifted holograms. It's exactly the kind of cartel you see in older movies like Mr. India; I like to think that they are literally the cartel from Mr. India, searching for a figurehead who can match the charisma and style of Mogambo.
Kali have arranged a test for Kabir, to prove that he's not secretly still working for RAW: they've kidnapped Luthra, and want Kabir to kill him. Kabir is reluctant, because of course he's secretly still working for RAW, but Luthra insists that he completes his mission, and finally and reluctantly Kabir pulls the trigger. The members of Kali are pleased, and Kabir is rewarded with a meeting with India's representative in the cartel, Gautam Gulati (K. C. Shankar.) Gulati is a villain for the modern era, an amoral billionaire who just wants more money and more power, but who can't muster thegravitas of Amrish Puri in a bad blond wig.
However, just to be very sure that Kabir isn't secretly still working for RAW, Kali send the video of Luthra's death to Indian intelligence, and Vikrant Kaul (Anil Kapoor), the new head of RAW, puts together a team to take Kabir down, because apparently Luthra was the only person who knew about Kabir's secret mission. (I too have seen Don.) The team includes Luthra's daughter Kavya (Kiara Advani) and decorated veteran Vikram Chelapathi (NTR Jr.) who is introduced in his own physics defying fight scene, establishing that he's skilled, a bit of a lone wolf, and played by that guy from RRR.
The team discuss Kabir and his possible motives, and they confidently note that Kabir doesn't have any family or loved ones outside of RAW. In the next scene Kabir is in Spain, visiting Ruhi (Arista Mehta), the young girl he adopted at the end of the last movie. There's a chase and a fight and a train crash, and Kabir decides that Vikram can be trusted. The men meet secretly, Kabir tells Vikram about the mission Kali has given him, and asks the other man to stop him. Vikram eagerly agrees, and the men perform a big dance number while singing about how they're best friends now and would give their lives for one another.
But of course there's a problem. The movie is called War, and so these two can't be friends forever. The previous film kept Kabir's loyalties ambiguous for much of the runtime, so there was a real question of whether Kabir or his rival/protege Khalid (Tiger Shroff) was the real villain. This time we know Kabir is on the up and up - we saw Luthra assign the mission, and we have followed Kabir closely throughout the movie, so we know he's really good. That leaves Vikram, though the movie does manage to make the obvious twist more complicated than "he's working for Kali."
Hrithik and NTR have great chemistry, and the movie really does set up the bromance as something that's both deeply unhealthy and very important to both men. The rest of the movie is kind of overshadowed, though. The plot is basically nonsense, the action scenes range from "over-the-top" to "so over-the-top that my sense of disbelief is shattered", and Kiara Advani doesn't really have much to do. In theory she's supposed to be Kabir's love interest, but they don't have many scenes together and it's Vikram that gets the big dance number and declarations of eternal devotion.
War 2 does add something to the evolving Spy Universe; Kali provides the franchise with a useful and uncomplicated bad-guy operation, a Bollywood SPECTRE or Hydra (and the heroes even mention that if you cut off one head, two more will take its place.) And it is always nice to see Anil Kapoor, even though Vikrant Kaul is probably not Arun Verma in disguise.
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