Ram Setu - Movie Review

Ram Setu, dubbed as Adam’s Bridge is an important edifice of the epic Ramayana. Believers and followers of Sanathana Dharma do not question its existence from the time immemorial. It is the naysayers, non-believers and those of other religions who are hell bent on breaking the remnants of the bridge, so cargo vessels can pass through the Gulf of Mannar instead of taking a circuitous route around Sri Lanka. This long debated subject is the research of an ASI archaeologist in this film who goes from disbelieving the story of the bridge built by Lord Rama all the way to finding the erstwhile location of King Ravana’s palace. All within 200 mins! 


Aryan Kulshreshta (Akshay Kumar) is shown digging up wealth in a box, believed to be 100s of years old in the Taliban region. Though many of his colleagues get killed by the Taliban in a massive shoot-out, he and his colleagues reach safely to tell the story of the ancient link between Afghanistan and India. His next assignment at ASI is to find evidence that the Ram Setu is not man-made (read: built by Lord Rama), rather it existed even before the period of Ramayana, which is said to be 7,000 years before from now. Technically, even this is incorrect. Kali Yuga is said to be over 4,32,000 years of which about 5,100 are over. Dwapara Yuga when Lord Krishna lived was twice as Kali and Treta Yuga when Lord Rama lived was twice as much as Dwapara. Let’s leave aside the calculation for now. 


Indrakant (Nasser) is the owner of a large shipping agency and wants the evidence in his favour for the bridge to be broken for movement of ships and decides to support Aryan in his underwater research. To our surprise, we see a large ship placed in the Indian Ocean off the Rameswaram coast which has state of the art research equipment along with renowned researchers. As required by Aryan, he is provided with a robotic swim suit with which he could conduct underwater research along with Gabriell (Jeniffer Piccinato) and Dr. Sandra Rebello (Jacqueline Fernandes). They find some clinching evidence which also includes the floating stones, as eulogised in the epic Ramayana which was used to build the floating bridge. 




Once Aryan and his colleagues are convinced that the bridge coincides with the period of Lord Rama, they inform this over a video call to Indrakant. They request for more evidence which could be found only near the Lankan border which he agrees to arrange. Upon reaching there, they realise that they have been backstabbed, only to die in the deep ocean during a cyclone. However, the trio are rescued by AP (Satyadev) who agrees to take them around and help them in their expedition in the island nation which is going through a civil war. What follows thereafter is absolute masala stuff, much enjoyed with a pack of Nachos and Coke. 


Aryan and Co. travel all through Sri Lanka, from Ceylon Metro to the highways, singing and dancing with a newly-wed Sri-Lankan couple and their families, swim underwater along with a dwarf crocodile to find an underwater cave (without water though), climb up from the cave to reach Trikut mountain which is considered the erstwhile palace of King Ravana. Aryan’s logic is if he can prove Ravana’s existence, then it is easy to prove Rama’s existence and the bridge constructed by Lord Rama and the vanaras. After fighting the baddies led by Bali (Pravessh Rana), he lands up directly at the Supreme Court as the 3-Judge Bench is about to pronounce the verdict whether to break the bridge or not. Aryan gives a long sermon (!!!) about why it is important to protect values of Hinduism, why the Delhi Metro chose to take a longer route to save the Qutub Minar although it was built by the Mughals  who looted India, why the UP Government shut down factories in Agra to avoid dust formation on the Taj Mahal… The Judges seem to listen patiently and finally pass the verdict. 



Thinking about the turn of events, Aryan recollects that AP was none other than Anjani Putra Hanuman, who comes to help in his quest to find the truth about Ram Setu. This is a film of fiction and wild imagination to prove something which is historical and true that is Ram Setu. Watch on Amazon Prime.



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