We have made a patriotic film without the jingoism: Arjun Kapoor

License To Not Kill? The Man With No Gun? It's almost impossible for spy film fans to imagine James Bond unarmed. It is precisely this kind of oozy, ultraviolent imagery that India’s Most Wanted wishes to deflate. In this Raj Kumar Gupta-directed film, Arjun Kapoor plays Prabhat — a young and unassuming Intelligence Bureau (IB) officer who picks up the bounty on the deadliest terrorist of India. Accompanying him on the mission is a team of scraggly agents, a handful of dubious informers, and as the trailer makes clear, no firearms.

“There's a reason it's called an ‘intelligence’ bureau. It's about putting brains before brawn. In cinema, a lot of people put physicality into espionage. Ideally, it should never come to that,” says Arjun, who interacted with real IB officers and attended workshops to understand the mind of an operative. The actor says the foremost skill of an agent is to be malleable enough to blend into a new environment and extract information. “You need to be sharp enough to know that something can go wrong at any time, and yet, believe that everything will work out just fine.” 

 Although sourced from real events, the film makes no direct mention of the perpetrator depicted in the story. “We decided not to give any importance to someone who caused losses to 400 families,” Arjun says. “Our focus, instead, is on the bravery of our officers.” Asked about the recent rise of patriotic films around the election season, he contends, “Ours is a patriotic film without the jingoism. It does not spoon-feed you any philosophy. After watching the film, you will feel patriotic because of these five agents, not because someone is shouting or making threats against another country.”

India’s Most Wanted marks Arjun’s 11th release in a lead role. The 33-year-old actor was noted for his atypical debut in Habib Faisal’s Ishaqzaade (2012), an award-winning performance that won him a congratulatory visit from Raj Kumar Gupta, then fresh off the success of his critically-acclaimed films Aamir and No One Killed Jessica. “It feels great when someone encourages you when you are just starting out. He had no agenda. It's easy for directors now to tell me they want to work with me.” 

In 2014, Arjun and Raj were set to collaborate on the film version of Chetan Bhagat’s Revolution 2020 (the actor had earlier appeared in Abhishek Varman’s 2 States, another Bhagat adaptation). However, the project was dropped owing to a change of operations at UTV Motion Pictures. And then, in 2018, Raid got released — marking the comeback of Raj Kumar Gupta after a five-year-hiatus as well as turning out to be his first major box-office hit. “I had called him because I was so happy to see Raid. That's when he asked me to read the script of India’s Most Wanted.”

Up ahead, Arjun is gearing up for the release of Dibakar Banerjee’s Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar. The romantic thriller, which also stars Parineeti Chopra, was completed in 2018 but is yet to see the light of day. There were rumours that producer Aditya Chopra was unhappy with the final cut. Arjun clarifies that Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar is ready for release soon. “Just because Yash Raj Films is a quiet studio, everyone assumes something fishy is going on. SAPF is a niche Hindi film that needs to be put out at the right time. In the coming weeks, we have the cricket world cup and then there’s the Independence Day, which has become a bloodbath for releases. So, we are waiting for the ideal window.”

Besides Dibakar’s film, Arjun will be seen in Ashutosh Gowarikar’s magnum opus, Panipat. A reenactment of the historic Third Battle of Panipat, the film stars Arjun in the role of Maratha chieftain, Sadashiv Rao Bhau. The actor shares, “It's been a surreal experience to wake up every morning and play a Peshwa warrior. Panipat is a pro-India film. It's about the Marathas, Mughals and Rajputs joining forces to fight an Afghan invasion. I find that theme more relevant today — different communities and states coming together to protect one unified India.”