Review: Fateh on FinTech Fraud

Hammer hitting a head into mushy pulp. Drilling machines used to pin a beta-villain on to a wall for interrogation. Screwdrivers through noses. Knifes through eye-sockets. Box cutters opening a spine like a delivery-parcel. Gore- raw, merciless, red and vomit-triggering- everywhere. Blood sputtering like water. Flesh masticated by bullets all around. However, this is not the most scary part of this movie. But before we get to what is, here’s the most witty part of this movie. It forces (arm-twists, may be) us to not just stare at what is happening, but what can happen- with the flip side of technology.

Fateh, the directorial debut of Covid-time real-hero Sonu Sood, has the same undeterred focus that Sood kept while helping people in the pandemic. It’s all about the layman. It’s all about the masses. Saving the common man matters. As this ex-special-ops agent, trained in all styles of combat and intelligence, rises again from his quiet life in a dairy farm, Fateh (Sonu Sood) goes after a big nexus of cyber-crime when he tries to save someone he cares about. As he goes about -certainly and silently killing armies of gangsters like the Sigma Male he epitomises- Fateh’s quick hands and deft punches sometimes hit a wall when it comes to the thick cob-webs of cyber-crime. Helped with the torch that cyber-experts and hackers like Jacqueline Fernandez while fighting sinister, and greedy, brains like Raza (Naseeruddin Shah) and Satya (Vijay Raaz); Fateh is finally successful in killing the nemesis- but not without his own share of losses and dead-ends.

Fake loan apps – with quick and KYC-free approvals- form the starting point of the movie’s maze. But the ‘too good to be true’ question seems to have an underbelly that is much more than simply scamming people for data or financial frauds. The app-download can be later leveraged as Internet-spider in itself for malicious acts. Devices of good-but-lazy-or-impatient people can turn into zombie-helpers of the villains. The FinTech industry removes a lot of red tape but it can also inject a lot of red flags – unless regulators and users observe some strict caution. Cyber-mafia can run wider and deeper than we can imagine. The ease of digital money transfers can also turn into a toy in the wrong hands. Fat-finger syndrome can be more than a mistake in the world of cyber-criminals. And as 2 scary scenes drill it well, our social media addiction can -one day- be the electric chairs killing live humans. What’s more gory- eyes out of sockets, hands pinned by nails, fractured bones peeping out of flesh? Or seemingly-sensible people going about their everyday lives – but who will not heed to the request of not watching on a video that can electrocute a person- just because of the new-age urge of clicking on anything and everything that pops on the screen, specially if it’s forbidden? Yes, what’s more gory? Who’s the real remorseless villain?