From ‘Namastey London’ To ‘Kesari 2’: Akshay Kumar’s Enduring Bond With Patriotic Cinema

Almost every top hero today has done at least one film with a patriotic theme. But no one quite matches Akshay Kumar’s score. Early in his career, the actor did potboilers like “Mr. Bond” (1991) and “Sainik” (1993), while in 2004, he did “Police Force: An Inside Story” and “Ab Tumhare Hawale Watan Sathiyo” (2004), a multi-hero film. All these films failed at the box office, but his successful trysts with patriotic adventures, if we can term them so, began with “Namastey London” (2007). 

“Namastey London” was a smart contemporary avatar of Manoj Kumar’s cult “Purab Aur Pacchim” (1970). That film’s cult number “Hai Preet Jahan Ki Reet Sadaa,” in which Manoj extols India and Indians to both the patriotic and the errant NRIs, was replaced here by a monologue by Akshay in London. In this, he served hard facts about India’s achievements to Londoners who derided India. And as per Akshay, this story had actually happened to his friend.

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For Kumar, many films in this category have been about either unsung heroes or powerful social issues needing attention, and interestingly, out of over 20 such releases, 11 have been co-produced under his own banner. 

The actor has stressed that these subjects come to him incidentally and are not planned. But when he reads the scripts, he is excited enough to back them either as an actor or as a co-producer. “I feel blessed that I have the face, build and figure to etch such tough characters convincingly. Their realism, for me, is as enchanting as the larger-than-life entertainers that I do,” he offers. 

Akshay’s (co-)productions include the fictional “Holiday: A Soldier Is Never Off- Duty” (2014) and“Sooryavanshi” (2021) and reality-inspired sagas like“Airlift” (2016), “Toilet: Ek Prem Katha”(2017), “Pad-Man” (2018), “Kesari” and “Mission Mangal” (2019), “Ram Setu” (2002), “Sarfira” (2024) and “Kesari 2” last year.

His movies of patriotism outside his own production are “Baby” (2015) and its 2016 spin-off “Naam Shabana,” “Gabbar is Back” (2015), “Gold” (2018), “Bell Bottom” (2021), “Samrat Prithviraj” (2022), “Mission Raniganj” (2023) and “Sky Force” (2025). 

Wide Canvas

Akshay’s patriotism spans a vast canvas, from fiction-based sagas on espionage, terrorism, and even real events (“Ram Setu”) to highlighting real-life Indians who deserved the spotlight but never got it. In many cases, the actor’s technique was to rename real characters, relocate their stories to a different region of India, and bring in obvious dramatization.

The actor, for example, co-produced the saga of Matthuny Matthews, a businessman based in Kuwait, who helped evacuate all Indians to safety when Saddam Hussein’s troops invaded Kuwait in the 1990 Gulf War. Matthews spurred the Indian government into completing the largest civilian evacuation in history. This character was renamed Ranjit Katyal when Akshay essayed him in “Airlift,” a co-production.

Similarly, Tapan Das, his character in “Gold,” was a blend of Kishan Lal, the captain, and A.C. Chatterjee, the manager of the hockey team that won India its first Olympic Gold medal in 1948. “Pad Man” was based on the life of Arunachalam Muruganantham, a social activist and entrepreneur from Tamil Nadu who made low-cost sanitary pads for women in rural areas. The story was moved to North India, and the character was renamed Lakshmikant Chauhan. Akshay also played Kumar Om Ahuja, the fictionalized Vir Chakra winner Om Prakash Taneja, in the war story “Sky Force.”

Mylswamy Annadurai, chairman, Board of Governors, National Design and Research Forum, often termed the Moon Man of India, was essayed by Akshay as Rakesh Dhawan in “Mission Mangal”, the saga of India’s first interplanetary expedition, the Mars Orbiter Mission. “Sarfira” looked at the struggles of G. R. Gopinath, whose dream was to make airlines affordable for low-income Indians. He was renamed as Vir Mhatre, a Maharashtrian.

In “Toilet: Ek Prem Katha,” he essayed Keshav Sharma from Uttar Pradesh, the screen version of Shivram Narre from Madhya Pradesh.

In other cases, the real characters were maintained. “Mission Raniganj” was about Jaswant Singh Gill, a mining engineer from IIT, Dhanbad, who rescued 65 miners trapped in the Raniganj Coalfields in 1989. Dipping into history, Kumar enacted Emperor Prithviraj Chauhan in “Samrat Prithviraj” and the lesser-known Sikh soldier Ishar Singh in “Kesari.” In “Kesari 2”, Akshay essayed lawyer Chettoor Sankaran Nair in a dramatized retelling of the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre case. 

Filmmaker Vipul Amrutlal Shah, who worked with Akshay often, including in “Namastey London” and “Holiday” (2014), tells Variety India, “Akshay is a very patriotic man at heart. He loves his country and the Army, and had even started a fund for Army Widows. But if you see the conviction in his performances when doing a patriotic film, it’s not just about the bravado. Look at films like “Pad Man” (2018) or “Toilet: Ek Prem Katha” (2017) — you realize that here is a man who wants to contribute to the country, and does not bother if a project looks risky, like the subjects of these two films: sanitary pads and toilets. I don’t think many top actors would have the courage to do those stories! But Akshay has done them with a lot of love for the people of India, time and again.”

Shah adds, “He realizes that such subjects may not get production support. So he supports them with his own strength as a filmmaker. That shows his commitment. And if he has done so many such films, it is clear that it’s all coming from his heart, because he believes in them. And well, if deshbhakti is a formula for success, why is everyone not doing more of it?”

Concurs trade analyst Komal Nahta, “This genre has worked very well for him. Of course, every actor does more of the kind of films that people like them in. They also get more such offers and tend to select the best from them.”

Seconds producer Ashwin Varde, who has produced four films with the star, “Akshay always chooses his film depending on a script that he finds interesting. Of course, he has always been very good in the patriotic genre and there is definitely an element of taking many patriotic topics to the common people.”