Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl Bollywood movie review: Biopic on woman fighter pilot soars and dips

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Biopic, fuelled by performances from Janhvi Kapoor and Pankaj Tripathi, has high moments  Read the full story: https://bit.ly/3iCcLxl  See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km  #Bollywood #Netflix #GunjanSaxena

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00:00This is Manjusha Radhakrishnan from Gulf News and here is my review of Gunjan Saxena, The Kangal Girl.

00:11As the name suggests, it's a glowing biopic on India's first woman combat pilot who was a trooper

00:19in the Kangal war and her main job was to conquer the skies and find a place on earth as a woman.

00:25Everything about this true life story is made for a biopic. Look at it, there is a story of

00:31a struggle of a young woman, there's her smashing patriarchy, sexism, casual sexism at workplace

00:38and trying to soar high despite people trying to pull her down. There's two movie old Janhvi

00:45Kapoor who plays the role of Gunjan Saxena. But more than the central role, what I love

00:51best about this film is the stirring father-daughter tale. There's actor Pankaj

00:55Tripathi who plays the doting father to Gunjan and tells her that it's good to dream,

01:01let's do this together. He is such a gentle figure and he does it with such subtlety,

01:07his role with such subtlety that you can't help but admire the actor Pankaj Tripathi. In fact,

01:13this is more a daughter-father drama and it's one of those feel-good tales. And that's not

01:19saying Janhvi Kapoor was bad. In fact, for her second film, she did very well. She's got a very

01:26earnest expression on her face, her wide-eyed innocence of this woman, of this childlike woman

01:32who dreams of becoming a pilot from day one and then becomes a fierce combat pilot. It's a journey

01:40that's very inspiring and Janhvi seems to be injecting a lot of earnestness and honesty into

01:47the role and you can almost feel it. There are times when the wide-eyed innocent look and doe-like

01:52eyes might look a bit of an overkill but that's a small flaw in an otherwise fun film. In fact,

01:58it's one of those inspiring films which make you believe that without much drama, without much

02:04tears, here's a very strong story told in a very, very brisk manner. There's Angad Bedi, of course,

02:10who plays her misogynistic, sexist brother. He doesn't realize the ingrained patriarchy in him.

02:16In fact, there's a table conversation, dinner table conversation between the sister and the

02:21brother. There's Janhvi Kapoor and Angad Bedi and Janhvi is talking about how she wants to be

02:26a pilot when she grows up and he goes, do you mean an air hostess? And you could see that casual

02:32throwaway comment that he's made but it kind of shows the attitude that most men had at that point

02:37and although we may have come a long way, these are the kind of comments that you are accustomed

02:42to. What I loved about director Sharan Sharma's, it's his debut film, what I loved about his film

02:48is that he doesn't try too hard. You know, there are biopics in Bollywood that try too hard to

02:54gloss over all the flaws of a person but Janhvi Kapoor as Gunjan Saxena is shown as a very

03:00down-to-earth woman who actually dreams of touching the skies but it's not very cheesy,

03:06there are not these over-the-top patriotic, patriotism on display. I mean she's a combat

03:13pilot and the way she goes about it, it's almost like with a very clear-cut clinical precision and

03:19that is what I liked about the film as well. With a brisk pace of 1 hour and 45 running time,

03:25it moves at a very rapid pace. There's a lot to love in this movie, although the songs can be a

03:31bit much, there are also fun elements of this film. I mean talking about Pankaj Tripathi and

03:36Janhvi Kapoor's father-daughter relationship, I can't tell you how much I enjoyed those scenes.

03:42The kind of love and warmth that they enjoy for each other makes it almost like they need a

03:46separate movie in itself. There's one scene where both of them embark on this Rekha diet where she's

03:51slightly overweight, has not passed the medical exam and needs to lose a few stones. So what

03:57happens is that they embark on this Rekha diet after the famous superstar at that point where

04:03they eat green juices, they run a lot, they exercise and they eat right. So that was a fun

04:08part of the movie as well. It's very very relatable. All the characters in this film are relatable.

04:14Another interesting movie that's premiering on Netflix is that unlike many movies that are now

04:20doing the rounds on OTT platform, there's nothing dark, twisted or warped about the characters.

04:26It's very vanilla and it's a searing portrait of middle-class India. You see dreams, you see

04:33aspirations being shot down, you see how a woman is trying to find a place in her society in a not

04:40a bombastic manner and that's one of the highlights of this film. But the true wind beneath the wings

04:45is Pankaj Tripathi. I've gone with three out of five. For my full review, go to gulfnews.com.

04:52I can safely say that Janhvi Kapoor makes a smooth landing with this one.

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