Shantanu Bagchi’s 2023 spy thriller, Mission Majnu, stars Sidharth Malhotra in his third patriotic film and South-Indian powerhouse, Rashmika Mandanna in the primary roles. Backed by a good emotional and patriotic values without any of the larger-than-life action sequences, this film is inspired by a heroic secret mission that took place after India’s 1971 war victory over Pakistan and the nuclear bomb test in 1974.
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Mission Majnu is indeed an inspiring story and will make every Indian feel proud of the unknown heroes and their bravery. While doing so, it runs the risk of being overly heroic. The concept of cinematic liberty goes out of the window during the action and chase scenes. From the police chases to the climax sequence at the airport comes with zero authenticity. It looked like a decent film until the intermission part and matched many good spy dramas from over the years. Suddenly, the trajectory path changed in the second half to compromise reliability factors. But, the emotional and patriotic appeal is too high in the end to distract you quickly.
Sidharth Malhotra’s recent film choices were better compared to he was doing a few years go. Mission Majnu is one of his best works so far. Here he gets a different dialect, personality, and versatility to wear and does not disappoint. His co-star, Rashmika Mandanna, sheds the typical girl-next-door image and delivers a promising performance from an actor’s point of view.
Technically, Mission Majnu was relatively incomplete. Re-creating the 1970s is a tall task. In some scenes, the production design by Rita Ghosh was decent, but after a while, you will start to notice the inconsistencies. Repetitive frames and locations stop exciting you, but then, you have to bear it for the next 100 minutes. Also, I wonder why is this film so slow in the beginning? Even though I liked the music of “Rabba Janda” and the chemistry between Sidharth and Rashmika, it tinkered the pacing. Turning a spy thriller into a spy drama is a big mistake, but sometimes mistakes make things easy.
Shantanu Bagchi is definitely a director to look out for, as he has done well here. Yes, a few mistakes could have been avoided, and as I said, it lacks authenticity, but it does provide a powerful patriotic saga. Overall, although some amount of gold was turned into silver, this film is still a jewel after all. Watch ‘Mission Majnu’ on Netflix here.
Review by @samthebestest_
Edited by Surya Komal
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