Tango Charlie
Encyclopedia
Tango Charlie is a 2005 Indian film directed by Mani Shankar
Mani Shankar
Mani Shankar is a Bollywood director, best known for his direction of Hindi films such as 16 December, Rudraksh, and, Tango Charlie Mukhbir and Knockout....

. It got mixed reviews and did not perform well commercially. The movie aims to portray aspects of war and grief and does not glorify these acts.

Plot

The story starts off with two Indian Air Force
Indian Air Force
The Indian Air Force is the air arm of the Indian armed forces. Its primary responsibility is to secure Indian airspace and to conduct aerial warfare during a conflict...

 helicopter pilots (Sanjay Dutt
Sanjay Dutt
Sanjay Dutt is an Indian Hindi film actor and politician. Dutt, son of Hindi film actors Sunil and Nargis Dutt, made his acting debut in 1981.-Personal life:...

 and Sunil Shetty) discovering a mass pile of dead rebels and an Indian trooper appearing to be dead. They later discover he's alive and find out who he is by reading his diary. The tale revolves around an India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

n BSF
Border Security Force
The Border Security Force is a border patrol agency of the Government of India. Established on December 1, 1965, it is one of the Central Armed Police Forces. Its primary role is to guard India's international borders during peacetime and also prevent transnational crime...

 trooper named Tarun Chauhan (Bobby Deol
Bobby Deol
Bobby Deol is a Bollywood actor. Deol is the son of the acclaimed Bollywood actor Dharmendra and the brother of Sunny Deol, also a successful actor in the Mumbai based Indian film industry....

) in the 101st BSF Battalion arriving to the northeastern Indian province of Assam
Assam
Assam , also, rarely, Assam Valley and formerly the Assam Province , is a northeastern state of India and is one of the most culturally and geographically distinct regions of the country...

.( However, it is shown in the film that the regiment fights Bodo insurgents in Manipur the neighbouring province. Probably the filmamkers did not care to do proper research into the topic before writing the story. While walking through the jungle searching for his platoon commander, he was caught in a trap and hung upside down. It is later revealed that Havaldar (Sergeant
Sergeant
Sergeant is a rank used in some form by most militaries, police forces, and other uniformed organizations around the world. Its origins are the Latin serviens, "one who serves", through the French term Sergent....

) Mohammad Ali (Ajay Devgan
Ajay Devgan
Ajay Devgan , born Vishal Veeru Devgan on 2 April 1969, is an Indian film actor, director, and producer.He made his film debut with Phool Aur Kaante in 1991 and received a Filmfare Award for Best Male Debut for his performance in the film and for which he won a Filmfare Best Debut Award...

) set the trap and calls him an idiot for falling into it. He meets the rest of the squad where he gets his job as platoon cook. On being asked why he joined the Border Security Force
Border Security Force
The Border Security Force is a border patrol agency of the Government of India. Established on December 1, 1965, it is one of the Central Armed Police Forces. Its primary role is to guard India's international borders during peacetime and also prevent transnational crime...

, he says it is to protect his country from any harm. Ali says that whoever has made that comment is nothing but a hypocrite. He tells him that the Bodos rebels, who want an independent Assam from India, have massacred many innocent people and are not afraid to kill them as well. Tarun later acknowledges his codename "Tango Charlie" and learns Ali's codename is "Mike Alpha." One day on a patrol, the platoon accidentally kills one of their own as a set trap by the Bodos. The entire platoon goes mad with grief over the mistake. Then another soldier is kidnapped and has his stomach sliced open and is left as bait.

Tarun finds this shocking and totally unbelievable. Mohammad tells his overly emotional troopers to think that he's dead and focus on killing the terrorists. The dying soldier continues to scream in pain.

Tarun tries to stop one of the overly emotional soldiers from giving the wounded soldier morphine. He falls into the trap and is shot dead. The screaming soldier then dies. Tarun and Mike Alpha take aim and fire. They kill most of the rebels but others, as well as their leader, escape. At night, Tarun and Mohammad search for the remaining rebels and kill them off one by one. When the leader tries to escape by boat, Mike Alpha and Tarun swim over and knock them off. They engage in hand-to-hand combat; Mike Alpha slits the throat of the Bodos leader with his own machete. Tarun tries to kill the other rebel but finds out that it's a young boy. He holds a knife to his face. After the tour in Assam, Tarun returns home to his native province of Haryana
Haryana
Haryana is a state in India. Historically, it has been a part of the Kuru region in North India. The name Haryana is found mentioned in the 12th century AD by the apabhramsha writer Vibudh Shridhar . It is bordered by Punjab and Himachal Pradesh to the north, and by Rajasthan to the west and south...

.

He is happily welcomed home by his family and friends. He finds out is that he's going to be engaged to Lachchi Naryan (Tanisha), an educated computer engineer. Tarun has beliefs about her views, but they are changed by her. They fall in love, and Tarun pledges that he will come back to her alive.

A few months later Tarun and the rest of Mike Alpha's platoon are transferred to the southern state of Andhra Pradesh
Andhra Pradesh
Andhra Pradesh , is one of the 28 states of India, situated on the southeastern coast of India. It is India's fourth largest state by area and fifth largest by population. Its capital and largest city by population is Hyderabad.The total GDP of Andhra Pradesh is $100 billion and is ranked third...

 to counter the Naxalites rebels wreaking havoc on the countryside. Tarun and the rest of his platoon are riding in a convoy while protecting a high-ranking colonel's wife and young children. As the convoy approaches the city of Hyderabad, the rebels notice it and signal one of their own. He then presses the detonator and sets off a planted IED
Improvised explosive device
An improvised explosive device , also known as a roadside bomb, is a homemade bomb constructed and deployed in ways other than in conventional military action...

 under the jeep, killing the colonel and his family. They fire on the trucks, causing Mike Alpha's platoon to take cover in a rocky part beside the road while the rebels hunt them down. They use an RPG launcher to flush out the troopers but fail. Tarun and the rest of the platoon kill the rebels. Tarun chases a rebel; another BSF trooper attempts to rape her. Tarun intervenes by pulling him off. He then sees the rebel kill herself with her own assault rifle. The other BSF trooper tries to kill Tarun for his intervention but Tarun kills him in self defense. Mike Alpha discovers the whole thing and Tarun tries to surrender himself saying that he's willing to give into any punishment given to him. Mike Alpha says he did the right thing, protecting the Border Security Force's reputation.

On their next assignment, he is surprised to know that the platoon will now try to quench the religious riots taking place in the western province of Gujarat. Upon arriving at the chaotic scene, the police chief desperately tries to calm the crowd. When he is shot and killed by an extremist, Mike Alpha (a.k.a. Mohammad Ali) orders the platoon to open fire. Many innocent people are killed in the volley. Tarun spots the extremist and tries to shoot him. He accidentally hits a bystander who pops into the way. After the chaos, Tarun goes to the victim's family for forgiveness. Instead of forgiving him, they nearly beat him to death even after he tells them that it was a mistake. Mike Alpha intervenes and tells them that the BSF isn't here to kill innocent people but to stop people from committing acts of violence. While in a military hospital, Mohammad tells his own tragic story in which he was assigned to save the family of a rich landlord from Naxalites in Bengal
West Bengal
West Bengal is a state in the eastern region of India and is the nation's fourth-most populous. It is also the seventh-most populous sub-national entity in the world, with over 91 million inhabitants. A major agricultural producer, West Bengal is the sixth-largest contributor to India's GDP...

. The terrorists were able to kill almost everyone at the landlord's daughter's wedding. Even with all the effort, he and his group miserably failed; the daughter was killed by the terrorists before Mike Alpha finished them off. He claims it was the first time that he listened to his heart and not to his brains.

Tango gets a letter saying that Lachchi is getting married to another person. He dashes home and realizes that it was a trap set by her to see how much he loved her. The next day she steals his diary and reads it. She is shocked by the events Tarun had witnessed. Lachchi apologizes and they soon get married.

The Kargil War
Kargil War
The Kargil War ,, also known as the Kargil conflict, was an armed conflict between India and Pakistan that took place between May and July 1999 in the Kargil district of Kashmir and elsewhere along the Line of Control...

 between India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 and Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

 begins. Mike Alpha's platoon and the battalion move out to Kashmir
Kashmir
Kashmir is the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term Kashmir geographically denoted only the valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal mountain range...

 where they are assigned to defend a bridge. Mike Alpha gives Tarun a strict order: Shoot anyone who doesn't say a password after three tries. One day a high-ranking military officer comes to the bridge; he doesn't know the password ("rainfall"). Tarun shoots one of the guards which enrages the officer who threatens him with a court martial. The officer tries to kill him, and Mike Alpha intervenes. The officer is a disguised rebel helping Pakistani forces get off with ease. Tarun takes cover while the rebels kill off most the platoon. Mike Alpha kills a large number of the rebels before being approached by a real battalion of soldiers who give him the password. Mike salutes them and then dies of his severe wounds.

Tarun vows revenge. He arms himself to the teeth and stalks the rebels to their base. He wires the place with explosives. The rebel leader discovers one of the explosive attachments and tries to stop one of his men. Unfortunately he opens the door and the explosives go off, killing the rest of the rebels. Tarun then goes into the rebel leader's place and shoots him dead before being wounded. He collapses into the snow. He's rescued by the helicopter pilots featured earlier in the film who take him to a village doctor who treats him off his wounds. Later the pilots are rewarded for their actions in finding Tango Charlie. His dead friend and mentor Mohammad Ali gets rewarded.
Controversy

Despite all the commercial success the film remains one of the classic examples of poor research and this poor research had its political and ethnic repercussions. The film depicts the presence of Bodo insurgency in Manipur which is factually incorrect. Moreover the depiction of Bodos in general was a point of controversy and protests by the Bodo communitiy. So much so that even Ranjit Shekhar Musahari who was at that that time the Director General of the National Security Guards and later the Border Security Force ( and a Bodo himself)vehemently called for a ban on the movie. Some organisations also criticised the venture as a misinformation campaign. All this could have been avoided If the production team had done some basic research into the details.

Cast

  • Ajay Devgan
    Ajay Devgan
    Ajay Devgan , born Vishal Veeru Devgan on 2 April 1969, is an Indian film actor, director, and producer.He made his film debut with Phool Aur Kaante in 1991 and received a Filmfare Award for Best Male Debut for his performance in the film and for which he won a Filmfare Best Debut Award...

     - Havaldar Mohammed Ali (Mike Alpha)
  • Bobby Deol
    Bobby Deol
    Bobby Deol is a Bollywood actor. Deol is the son of the acclaimed Bollywood actor Dharmendra and the brother of Sunny Deol, also a successful actor in the Mumbai based Indian film industry....

     - Sepoy Tarun Chauhan (Tango Charlie)
  • Sanjay Dutt
    Sanjay Dutt
    Sanjay Dutt is an Indian Hindi film actor and politician. Dutt, son of Hindi film actors Sunil and Nargis Dutt, made his acting debut in 1981.-Personal life:...

     - Squadron Leader Vikram Rathore
  • Sunil Shetty - Flight Lieutenant Shezad Khan
  • Tanisha - Lachchi Narayan
  • Nandana Sen
    Nandana Sen
    -Early life:Sen was born in Kolkata, West Bengal to a Bengali Hindu family. She is the daughter of Nobel Laureate and Bharat Ratna economist Amartya Sen and Padma Shri winner Nabanita Dev Sen, one of the most prominent authors in the contemporary Bengali literature....

     - Shyamoli
  • Sudesh Berry
    Sudesh Berry
    Sudesh Berry is a well known television and Bollywood actor.Sudesh made his debut in 1988 with Khatron Ke Khiladi. He played the lead roles in Vansh and Yudhpath but these movies proved to be big flops...

     - BSF Soldier
  • Shahbaaz Khan - BSF Soldier
  • Vishal Thakkar - Young Soldier Killed by Bodos
  • Kelly Dorji
    Kelly Dorji
    Kelly Dorji is a Bhutanese actor and model based in Mumbai, India. He studied at St. Paul's School, Darjeeling and later St. Xavier's College, Mumbai. Dorji got his break into the mainstream through the Gladrags Manhunt Contest....

     - Bodo militant leader
  • Vivek Shaq - Tarun's friend
  • Sanjay Mishra
    Sanjay Mishra (actor)
    Sanjay Mishra is an Indian actor and comedian who is best known for his character of Apple Singh, an "icon" used by ESPN Star Sports during the 1999 Cricket World Cup and also for his comedic act in the film All The Best. He made his film debut in the 1995 Indian musical film Oh Darling! Yeh Hai...

     - Tarun's friend
  • Alok Nath
    Alok Nath
    Alok Nath is an Indian film actor who appears in Bollywood movies. He is most notable for playing the role of Haveli Ram in Ramesh Sippy's television series, Buniyaad.-Early life:...

     - Chauhan (Tarun's dad)
  • Anjan Srivastav
    Anjan Srivastav
    Anjan Srivatsav is an Indian film, television and stage actor, associated with Indian People's Theatre Association in Mumbai of which he remained Vice-President for several years...

     - Doctor
  • Tiku Talsania
    Tiku Talsania
    Tiku Talsania is an Indian actor who has acted in supporting roles in more than 100 films and in TV Serials.-Television:*Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi*Zamana Badal Gaya .... Kanhaiya Lal Mathur*Ek Se Badhkar Ek .... Brijbhushan...

     - Ram Narayan (Lachchi's dad)
  • Mukesh Tiwari
    Mukesh Tiwari
    Mukesh Tiwari is an Indian actor who has appeared in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu language films as a character role. He belongs To Sagar. His first appearance was as a bandit "Jagira" in China Gate in 1998...

     - Pakistan Army Officer
  • Rajendranath Zutshi
    Rajendranath Zutshi
    Rajendranath Zutshi, aka Raj Zutshi, is a Mumbai-based Indian film and television actor. He is actor Aamir Khan's ex-brother-in-law, as he was married to producer-director-writer Nasir Hussain's daughter Nuzhat...

    - Naxal Leader

DVD sales and international market

Tango Charlie was an instant success in the American market. It earned over $6 million, which hugely covered the loss in the Indian market. Its DVD sales skyrocketed and stood to be the fourth highest selling Bollywood DVD of the year.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK