The sound design during the interrogation sequence in Attack - Part 1 has this annoying habit of panning just slightly too far to the left channel, which is the kind of cheap mixing quirk that pulls you right out of a movie before it has even properly started. John Abraham plays yet another brooding soldier with a personal vendetta against vague geopolitical threats, and if I'm honest, his posture alone does eighty percent of the heavy lifting. He stands there with his shoulders pulled back so tight he looks like he's wearing a rigid plastic brace under his black tactical vest, staring off into the middle distance while superior officers shout about national security and protocols. Bollywood movies have spent the last decade trying to replicate the sleek, frictionless violence of Hollywood franchises without any of the spatial geography that makes those fights actually readable, leading to frantic close-ups where you can't tell whether a boot is connecting with a jaw or just kicking empty air. Director Lakshya Raj Anand inherits the shaky-cam vocabulary of the mid-2000s and doubles down on it, shooting every dialogue scene with an aggressive handheld jitter that suggests the cameraman had too much espresso before call time. Prakash Raj shows up as the weary minister trying to keep the fragile peace, chewing on his dialogue with the fatigued professionalism of a man who signed the contract for the paycheck and simply decided to show up on set without asking too many questions.

The plot kicks into gear when a heavily armed faction takes over Parliament, or a facility that looks suspiciously like a budget-conscious approximation of Parliament, trapping dozens of civilian hostages including Rakul Preet Singh's doctor character. Rakul gets saddled with the thankless task of looking concerned while holding medical supplies, running through smoky corridors where the fog machine is clearly working overtime just to obscure the plywood walls of the set. She tries to give her lines some grounded urgency, but the script keeps feeding her clunky exposition about neural chips and cybernetic enhancement that would sound awkward coming out of a Shakespearean actor. Then John gets blown up, revived, and turned into a walking super-soldier via an experimental implant managed by a shaky-voiced scientist who talks entirely in scientific jargon delivered at a breakneck speed. The operation gives him an artificial interface that projects holographic blueprints directly onto his retinas, which leads to several digital overlay shots that feel like leftovers from a rejected video game pitch. It is a small thing, but it bugged me that every time the cybernetic eye activates, it makes the exact same generic digital chirp that has been used in trailers and commercials since two thousand and ten.

Watching John move through the second-half corridor fights brings to mind his work in Force, where the physicality was at least grounded in sweaty, bone-crunching impact rather than wire-fu and green screen cutaways. Here, the editing chops up every physical confrontation so aggressively that momentum dies completely between one shot and the next, trading actual stunt work for rapid-fire CGI sparks and digital blood splatter that looks like a paintbrush dropped in red ink. The action lacks the rhythmic precision of a good genre piece, stumbling from one loud room to the next without giving the viewer a clear sense of who is winning or where the exits are located. Jacqueline Fernandez drifts through the narrative as a handler whose primary narrative function is to look glamorous in slick corporate attire while monitoring heart rates from a glowing control room. Her chemistry with John exists purely in the realm of shared brooding stares, completely devoid of banter or casual warmth that might make their past relationship feel lived-in.

The film treats its technological premise with an utter lack of curiosity, treating cybernetics like a magic wand that cures paralysis and grants instant martial arts mastery with zero psychological friction. There's no room for the messy, strange humanity that usually makes body-horror or transhumanist stories interesting, because this universe is far too sterile and serious to let a character feel weird about having a microchip drilled into their cervical spine. Hindi cinema has never quite known what to do with science fiction elements unless they are dressed up as mythological allegory or broad comedy, and this movie plays it completely straight to the point of near-parody. The supporting villains lack any distinct personality beyond snarling in foreign accents and barking orders into walkie-talkies while wearing matching tactical gear that makes them look interchangeable. Prakash Raj manages to salvage a few scenes simply by dropping his voice to a low register and refusing to match the hysterical pitch of the actors screaming around him, providing a temporary anchor in sequences that otherwise threaten to spin out into pure noise.

The soundtrack relies heavily on thumping electronic basslines designed to artificially inflate the pulse rate during scenes where people are simply walking down long hallways holding assault rifles. It's an exhausting auditory experience that never lets up, hammering away at the audience with the subtle touch of a pneumatic drill. When the credits finally roll, setting up the inevitable sequel with a teasing final shot that resolves absolutely nothing, you are left with the distinct impression of having watched a pitch reel stretched out to feature length. There is a version of this story that leans into the ridiculousness of its premise and has fun with the man-machine dynamic, but this production is far too proud of its generic action-hero posturing to ever crack a smile. It simply sits there in the dark, loud and heavy and determined to leave your ears ringing.