Movie review: Can Akshay Kumar save the day?

Gulf News

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00:00And truth be told, we're slightly tired of seeing Akshay Kumar in this saviour kind of

00:04roles. I mean, off late, he's been adopting roles which show him as this superhero with a cape,

00:10these real-life missions that showcase a particular country in great light, etc.

00:20Good evening, everyone. This is Manjusha Radhakrishnan from Gulf News. I'm the

00:24entertainment editor. And this morning in the UAE cinemas, I caught up with Akshay Kumar's

00:29new movie called Mission Rani Ganj. The stakes are very high in this movie based on a real-life

00:35mission. This happened in 1989 in West Bengal, where 65 miners were rescued from underground

00:43when their shaft flooded, and we didn't know whether they would make it alive or not.

00:48This movie boasts a raft of talents like Anant Mahadevan, Kumud Mishra, Ravi Kishan, etc. They

00:54are all talented in their own right. But what we have in this movie is some over-the-top acting.

00:59It almost looks like the collective brief given to all the actors is to be over-the-top,

01:04loud and flamboyant. See, this is a very grim issue. I mean, we are talking about people's

01:09lives. We are talking about how these poor miners are trapped, not knowing whether they will

01:15actually see their family ever again. But everything is done in a very deliberately

01:20loud manner and bombastic manner. It does not work for this movie. I think this film would

01:25have benefited a lot from no-frills kind of docu-series kind of manner, rather than treating

01:31it the typical Bollywood style. I mean, the movie opens with Akshay Kumar's character,

01:38Jaswant Gill, who is a very stoic officer, cares for the lives of miners, knows what he is doing,

01:44break out into a song serenading his wife, played by Parineeti Chopra. Their lives are at stake and

01:50it's up to Jaswant Gill, played by Akshay Kumar as this valiant superhero, to come to their rescue.

01:56What I like about this movie is that Akshay Kumar, as always, is very, very earnest in his role. He

02:01gives it his best. But what lets this film down is the over-the-top acting. Now, we are looking

02:07at families who are devastated, knowing that there is a tragedy waiting to happen in their lives.

02:12The screeches are real. There's even one scene where one of the family members of the coal miners

02:18trapped inside, they come ahead and just slap Akshay Kumar's character. Something tells me that

02:22this movie did not benefit from the Bollywood style treatment at all. The song and dance in

02:28the beginning, where Jaswant Singh Gill is introduced to us as this stoic family man,

02:33who takes care of his wife, played by Parineeti Chopra. Recently, she got married as well,

02:38so there's a lot of interest in her as well, her role. But she does not have much to do,

02:44and the songs, etc., kind of fracture the narrative. What would have helped tremendously

02:48is if Tinu Suresh Desai had adopted a more no-frills, docu-series kind of style of filmmaking,

02:55telling us step by step how did this rescue operation pan out. It's not that Akshay Kumar is

03:00not good in his role. He is very good in his role, but the problem is he's let down by acting that is

03:05way over the top. In fact, the slow motions does not help. The Bollywood style treatment of this

03:11movie does not help as well. In fact, this movie also has some very talented people like Ravi

03:16Kishan, Kumud Mishra, etc., but they've all been given the collective brief to overact.

03:22So what we have is a very bombastic feature. Something tells me that the real life Jaswant

03:27Gill had a lot of gravitas. He had a lot of ethics and scruples, but all of that was lost

03:34in translation. Another thing that let this movie down is the bad VFX. If you look at the

03:41scenes where the coal miners are trapped inside and the water flooding, etc., those scenes look

03:47impossibly staged. All in all, this movie, had it been treated with a more sensitive hand, perhaps

03:54a subtle way of acting, subtle way of, you know, letting the narrative take its course, it would

04:00have been such a better movie. There's no denying that there was a lot of promise in this film.

04:06The villains in this movie are also impossibly caricaturish and tinny. Look at the example of

04:12Divendu Bhattacharya, who plays this very corrupt officer. He's trying to sabotage Jaswant Gill's

04:18rescue operations. He just wants more money. He doesn't care about the lives of the miners.

04:24But everything is done in such an over-the-top manner that you stop feeling for any of these

04:30characters. In fact, there's also a scene where he's pelted after being tied to a tree. I mean,

04:36this is a rescue operation happening. Time is of the essence. Where do you have time for such

04:40melodrama? So this is one of the biggest failures of this film. Go down this tunnel only if you're

04:46in the mood for some bombastic filmmaking and also to see a larger-than-life Bollywood hero

04:51trying to save the day with as much subtlety as the drilling machine.

04:56And truth be told, we're slightly tired of seeing Akshay Kumar in this saviour kind of roles.

05:01I mean, of late, he's been adopting roles which show him as this superhero with a cape,

05:06these real-life missions that showcase a particular country in great light, etc.,

05:11or show him as this great patriot. Perhaps what would benefit is to mix things up a bit.

05:17I've gone with 2 out of 5 stars. For my full review, go to gulfnews.com.

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