No genre in Hindi cinema has become fodder for memes as much as the Bollywood war film. The never-ending disclaimers profusely thanking the armed forces (since 2020, all scripts depicting them need clearance from the Ministry of Defence), the green palette to portray any scene or character in Pakistan, the abrupt spike in Urdu words when a Pakistani character appears on screen, a version of ‘naya India (new India)’ and ‘yeh ghar mein ghusega (it will barge into an enemy’s home)’ featuring in the dialogue – it’s all been mocked to the point of exhaustion. Even filmmakers seem aware of the fatigue surrounding lazy, rabidly jingoistic films, forcing them to work harder to make nationalistic narratives land.Operation Safed Sagar, created by Abhijeet Singh Parmar and Kushal Srivastava, knows the challenges of making another series on India’s armed forces in the current climate. It understands how they’ve been co-opted to preach poisonous patriotism, how Pakistan’s kohl-eyed forces have been caricatured beyond recognition, and how war films are often dumbed down to speak the language of manipulation. It tries to do better by lending ordinary lives to its officers. For most of its six episodes, it stays away from those impulses. However, eventually, it succumbs.Named after the Indian Air Force operation during the 1999 Kargil conflict (which borrows it from the snow-capped mountain peaks of the Kargil region), the show begins as an antidote to the Bollywood war film. Built around the ‘Golden Arrows’ squadron, featuring the obligatory gung-ho pilots inspired by Top Gun, it offsets the heightened testosterone with Squadron Leader Ajay Ahuja (Siddharth) — a man with the calm of a still-life painting in an otherwise fast-paced world. His introduction sees him riding to the base on an old scooter, where Wing Commander Tony (Jimmy Shergill) welcomes him by joking that the MiGs are as old as his two-wheeler.Like Top Gun: Maverick (2021), which transformed a war film into something resembling a sports movie, the first two episodes tease a similar dynamic. The pilots train in precision missions, photographing enemy territory while evading surface-to-air missiles (SAMs). One exercise has them flying in close formation so they register as a single dot on enemy radar. I especially enjoyed the camaraderie on base, particularly a ritual called ‘bouncing’, where juniors arrive uninvited at a senior’s home for dinner, only to be endowed with chopping duties, after being served drinks.A screengrab from the trailer of ‘Operation Safed Sagar’.A word for Siddharth and Shergill, who previously featured in counter-cultural patriotic films of their time: Rang De Basanti (2006) and Maachis (1996). Rang De Basanti controversially questioned the quality of the MiG aircraft; a detail that feels unthinkable to include in a 2026 series, where the planes are unblemished heroes. The young pilots include Dhali (Abhay Verma), Baldy (Mihir Ahuja), Sangy (Taarukh Raina) and Goofy (Arnav Bhasin), the last of whom barely gets to speak.Baldy is the only trainee afforded self-doubt. His partner, Madhavi (Prajakta Koli), runs away from home and arrives at the air force base. Sheltered by the Ahuja family, she forces Baldy to balance becoming a disciplined pilot with being a loyal partner. The track had potential, which is wasted because of the staple Netflix rom-com treatment, with Koli playing an extension of herself as she has done in most of her acting assignments. “Baldy, do you even love me?” she asks at one point – a line that made me audibly groan.A more considered choice is the characterisation of Pakistan’s leadership. Nawaz Sharif (Vinay Pathak) is portrayed as a PM out of his depth, overshadowed by an overbearing father (S.M. Zaheer), negotiating with a politician in the uniform of an army chief, Pervez Musharraf (Manu Rishi Chadha), while worrying about his place in history. The push-and-pull between Sharif, the army and the ISI offers a more rounded portrait of Pakistan than Hindi cinema usually permits.A screengrab from the trailer of ‘Operation Safed Sagar’.Yet, when the war begins, that nuance disappears. As Indian soldiers are killed, Pakistani generals casually watch a cricket match in Musharraf’s office. A senior officer orders that a captured Indian pilot be treated with dignity, only to threaten him with a forced confession moments later. When he refuses, Musharraf orders harsher torture. The writing wants the Pakistani army to be both cruel and selectively humane, but lacks the connective tissue to reconcile those impulses, making the characterisation feel schizophrenic.It’s in the final two episodes that the series fully succumbs to populism. A familiar scene of a widow confronting a colleague who promised to keep her husband safe plays out. Screenwriting contrivances culminate in the pilots executing a seemingly impossible mission after exchanging determined stares and a round of cheesy pep talks. A show grounded for most of its runtime suddenly begins pandering to fans of the JP Dutta school of Bollywood war films.Even though strategies keep failing and the finale lurches from one eureka moment to another, the climactic battle feels predetermined. The camera lingers on the bodies of Indian martyrs, seemingly to manufacture outrage. However, when the Indian Air Force destroys the Pakistani positions, the show immediately cuts to the pilots’ jubilation. I don’t know if it’s reasonable to expect anti-war messaging from a series about a conflict between two nuclear powers, but there isn’t one here. The mutilation of Indian soldiers’ bodies and Pakistan’s refusal to accept its own dead are both historically recorded. Yet both details feel deployed less for context than to twist the knife further into the Indian audience.A screengrab from the trailer of ‘Operation Safed Sagar’.Towards the end, Colonel Sartaj (Barun Sobti) repeats something Amitabh Bachchan’s similarly ranked Sunil Damle said in Lakshya (2004): there’s a difference between India’s and Pakistan’s armies, and that difference should remain. Both say it while ordering the last rites of Pakistani soldiers according to their religion.Watching a mildly patriotic show being selectively factual about Pakistan’s faults, while treating India with blanket reverence, I couldn’t help wondering if the difference still exists. In 1999, it did. In 2026, we might have ceded that higher moral ground.*All episodes of Operation Safed Sagar are streaming on Netflix.