'Main Atal Hoon' Movie Review: Main bored hoon

Movie Main Atal HoonDirector Ravi JadhavActors Pankaj Tripathi Piyush MishraRating 25Atal Bihari Vajpayee was a tall leader This has by and large been established Why else would there be his biopic The question is if the story on the late poet Prime Ministerrsquos life 19242018 delves into anything deeper If it doesnrsquot why else should we care to watch itFrankly this film doesnrsquotmdashbesides stringing together milestones and anecdotes that is kinda impossible that you havenrsquot read about alreadyWhether itrsquos Vajpayee getting the portrait of Jawaharlal Nehru reinstalled at South Block once he became the external affairs minister Or Nehru himself once prophesying that Vajpayee would some day become Indiarsquos PMWhich speaks highly of how Indiarsquos political culture was when partisan divides got dealt with maturity rather than mortal enmity Especially during such polarising times when you find families and friends fighting over who you vote for As if that matters to anyone but the politiciansVajpayee an eternal emissary of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh RSS came to be recognised later as the more liberal face of Hindutva or political HinduismEven among those who may not believe in mixing religion with politicsstate The sense you get from those who love Vajpayee while they didnrsquot agree with his worldview is that he came across as ideologically accommodative or flexibleHe left the more religiously hardline public positions for his partner Lal Krishna Advani to pursue Propelling his political opponents to label him as the right man in the wrong party In turn several of his party supporters found him to be too soft on matters of overt populism This could be a fine mental conflict to exploreWhat you watch in the film is Vajpayee carrying along a peace contingent to Pakistan as Indiarsquos PM which immediately precedes the Kargil War The goingson in the Prime Ministerrsquos Office during the Vajpayee years could be illuminating too There is none of it hereMain Atal Hoon is a propaganda film And I donrsquot mean this as a pejorativemdashsimply as a description of it Propaganda is after all a legit genre whether in literature journalism indeed in filmsAnd that we merely define as ldquoideas facts allegations spread deliberately to further onersquos cause or damage an opposing causerdquo to quote the Webster dictionaryThe purpose of propaganda is also to consciously select which events to highlight and which to altogether omit Hence in this movie you observe Advanirsquos Rath Yatra and the Bharatiya Janta Party taking up the Ram Janmabhoomi issuemdashsomething that eventually brought the newly minted outfit to powerBut you see none of the 1992 communal riots that the issue ignited down to Godhra arson and 2002 Gujarat riots during the Vajpayee years Entering his dilemmasviews on the same could be worth a biopicrsquos remitThe Congress party is positively the only villain in this film by way of a conflictmdashif there is any through the entirety of Vajpayeersquos own life at allThere is random repartee for how a poet would build a bomb or why an artiste must be a national leader ldquoLoktantra ka cheerharan Congress ki purani aadatrdquo Vajpayee says An issue that bothers him in early political life is the incursion from China and later the rising price of petrolAt the centre of this piece is Pankaj Tripathi playing Vajpayee with the level of effortless charm exuding supreme empathy that comes so naturally to him as an actorLeads in biopics inevitably draw the widest praise from audiencesmdashtheyrsquore inevitably the Oscar favourites for instance Simply because the viewers have a mental image of the character alreadyThey can instantly tell how great a performance is since they have something to compare it against The film gives Tripathi enough to prepare formdashunlike say his last release Kadak Singh 2023 where he could even phone in his performanceThe ensemble cast in this pic is likewise picked to perfection with actors and mannerisms to matchmdashfrom Syama Prasad Mookerjee Deendayal Upadhyay down to Pramod Mahajan or Sushma SwarajThe director Ravi Jadhav Natarang Taali in terms of ensuring craftmdashlighting framing production design etcmdashis competent enough You should expect no less from a film fit for theatrical releaseBut the script itself is essentially a series of events culled from GoogleYouTube for research It could work just as well for a Films Division showreelWhile by all accounts lifelong bachelor Vajpayee was a far more intriguinginteresting personality The couple of times the movie lights up is when it shines a torch on the relationship with his father Piyush Mishramdashboth read law in college together Or his friendcumfan from college Rajkumari Kaul 19282014 whose family he adopted at some point You wish to dive deeperFrankly I read about politics for pleasure What to do when you follow movies for a livingMay I hence guide you to Vinay Sitapatirsquos entertaining insightful book Jugalbandi on Vajpayee Advani Have been meaning to lay my hands on Abhishek Choudharyrsquos biography Vajpayee The Ascent of the Hindu Right 192477 as wellThis didnrsquot feel like mixing work with pleasure at all

'Main Atal Hoon' Movie Review: Main bored hoon

Movie: Main Atal Hoon
Director: Ravi Jadhav
Actors: Pankaj Tripathi, Piyush Mishra
Rating: 2/5

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Home / Entertainment / Bollywood News / Article / 'Main Atal Hoon' Movie Review: Main bored hoon

'Main Atal Hoon' Movie Review: Main bored hoon

Movie: Main Atal HoonDirector: Ravi JadhavActors: Pankaj Tripathi, Piyush MishraRating: 2/5

Trending Stories

Latest Photos

Latest Videos

Latest Web Stories

Mid-Day Fast

Movie: Main Atal Hoon
Director: Ravi Jadhav
Actors: Pankaj Tripathi, Piyush Mishra
Rating: 2/5