This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

A great film. I still remember those days when I was mad about watching this movie every time our cable operator use to play it. The camera work is good and the shooting in the background of Rajasthan is breathtaking. Good direction by J.P. Dutta. Border is the best Hindi war movie. Rarely has an Indian movie depicted the personal traumas that confront soldiers and their families. Song Sandese aate hain is goose bumping and heart touching. Mere Dushmaan Mere Bhai is a great way to end the movie. The songs of this movie adds a lot to the movie. The end of the movie depicted most soldiers dead and the trauma it caused to their family members. The lyrics of song Mere Dushman Mere Bhai sung by Hariharan criticises war and describes its disastrous effects, with the lines (why do we grow guns in our farms instead of wheat and rice, when children in our countries cry due to hunger...) Good anti war message. Akshay khanna's death scene is lifted from another war film "hell is for heroes" starring McQueen. The music composed by Anu Malik n the lyrics penned by Javed Akhtar are the soul of the film.

How can a movie which is full of jingoism & Chauvenism categorize as a legendary bollywood movie? Well, honestly speaking, i don't know. But what i do know is that whenever this movie is shown on TV, i still make it a point that i don't miss even one second of it. Thats the real genius of the movie. It has caught the aspirations of many patriotic indians like me and hence, has succeeded in showcasing the same in the best possible way(minus the jingoism). Though, this movie would not appeal much to the International audience (Let alone Pakis), but it has always struck a chord with the millions of Indians who have seen this movie. I was 11 when this movie released. I remember that after i and my friends had watched it in the theater, we used to pretend to be the characters of the movie while playing. The performances are really convincing, including that of Jackie Shroff even though he is hardly seen on the screen. If anyone(especially any Indian) is reading this comment, i suggest that you quickly grab a DVDof this movie).

First off, I'm neither Indian nor Pakistani, so I didn't come come to this movie with any feelings about the 1971 Indo-Pakistani war one way or the other. In fact, although I'm fairly well acquainted with the war, I had never heard of this movie, or anyone in it, before I saw it listed on Netflix, and based on the description, I thought it might be interesting so I rented it. Bad move on my part.To begin with, for a film that obviously cost quite a bit of money, it's very sloppily made. It was a bit of a puzzlement when a character starts speaking in English and in the middle of the sentence switches to Hindi, or vice-versa. Don't know why the filmmakers did that, but it's very annoying (as were the completely bizarre musical numbers that were inserted into the middle of the film. Seeing squads of Indian soldiers singing and dancing in the middle of the desert on the eve of war was disconcerting, to say the least. Also, although the film's Hindi dialogue was subtitled in English, the lyrics to the songs weren't. Strange.). The acting for the most part was more reminiscent of an overblown 1909 D.W. Griffith melodrama than a modern (1997) war picture, full of grand theatrical gesturing and overheated, pretentious and ultimately boring stretches of dialogue. The "action" scenes were, to put it mildly, pathetic. I realize this was based on an actual incident, but it must have been VERY "loosely" based because the action consists of wildly improbable and hysterically phony heroics by the Indian soldiers that make the laughable Chuck Norris "Missing in Action" travesties look like documentaries, sneering villainy by the Pakistani side (I almost expected to see the head Pakistani officer twirling his mustache and tying a young girl to the railroad tracks while cackling "Nyah ah ah!") and dialogue that Ed Wood would be too embarrassed to write (one soldier, explaining his mother's blindness, says, "She went blind from the tears she had shed" for her deceased war-hero husband). The special effects are laughable--tanks that get "blown up" are obviously wooden mock-ups, as you can see flaming pieces of wood showering the ground after the explosions and what's left of the tank's "hulk" shattering when it hits the ground, and when some soldiers are "shot" you can see the square outline of the blocks the exploding squibs are attached to beneath their uniforms. One Indian soldier who finds himself in the no-man's-land between the Indian trenches and the attacking Pakistanis suddenly charges the enemy line and is promptly shot about 20 times for his trouble, but amazingly is rescued and brought back to the Indian positions, where he holds on for awhile before finally expiring (after, of course, giving a patriotic speech), while Pakistani soldiers who get shot only once die immediately. However, there's a scene where the Pakistanis overrun the Indian trenches and some very brutal hand-to-hand fighting occurs, and that is reasonably well done--much better than the rest of the "action" was.All in all, it's a clumsy and badly written (and edited, and acted, and scored) mixture of Hindu nationalism, Indian jingoism, stupidly phony heroics and wildly out-of-place musical numbers. If this is an example of the best that "Bollywood" has to offer, as some reviewers here seem to think, then thanks but no thanks.

Border (1997) is an bloody war film filled with an hour's worth of singing. The story is about a company of soldiers (most of the Punjabs) who must defend the India/Pakistan border at all costs. Tensions between the two countries were at the boiling point. The Pakistanis were preparing an all out assault on the Indian border. Based upon a real incident, the actors were great in their roles and the film makers made these characters flesh and blood instead of mere cardboard figures. Each has a tale to tell (in song with a lot of musical numbers). Who will win this incredibly high tensioned battle of survival?A great film. I enjoyed it very much. I have watched several Indian films before and if I can find more like these then I can find a new film industry to keep an eye upon. The D.V.D. I saw was in stereo with English sub-titles. Over three hours long and highly entertaining. The violence content is high and a must for action fans and history buffs.