Airlift

Airlift (2016) is an Indian drama from director Raja Menon that you can watch online on iFILM. It draws on what unfolded in the summer of 1990, when Saddam's tanks rolled into Kuwait and close to two hundred thousand Indians suddenly found themselves trapped in someone else's war.

Ranjit Katyal is a rich, well-connected trader in Kuwait who long ago stopped thinking of himself as Indian — the mansion, the contacts, the clout settled everything. The invasion wipes that life out overnight. Abandoning his own quiet escape, he takes on the job of getting his countrymen out: squeezing money loose, bargaining with Iraqi officers, badgering bureaucrats back in Delhi, and gathering thousands into a camp while occupation grinds on outside. Akshay Kumar plays the lead, with Nimrat Kaur as his wife.

The film reconstructs the largest civilian evacuation ever attempted — over a couple of months, planes carried more than a hundred and seventy thousand people home. Menon keeps his hero flawed on purpose, a cold opportunist at first, which makes the turn he eventually takes hit harder. A grounded pick for anyone who prefers a drama built on a real act over an invented thriller. Stream Airlift (2016) online on iFILM.