Main Atal Hoon is a 2024 Hindi language biographical film directed by Ravi Jadhav and written by Rishi Virmanu. It stars Pankaj Tripathi as Former Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Director: Ravi Jadhav

Writers: Ravi Jadhav, Rishi Virman

Forged: Pankaj Tripathi, Raja Rameshkumar Sevak, Piyush Mishra, Payal Nair, Pramod Pathak

Runtime: 139 mins

It’s hard to move incorrect with the story of a flesh presser who’s also a poet. It’s harder to move incorrect with a prepared-made brew of art and diplomacy. consider the in-built lyricism, the cinematic licence, the oratory swag, the lonely mindscape and the literary motifs. imagine the provocative marriage of words and visuals. consider the philosophical intensity and cultural acumen. imagine the herbal chemistry between narrative and subtext.

Consider the rhyme and motive. (consider all of the above in John Lennon’s voice.) but, in opposition to all odds, director Ravi Jadhav manages to do the not possible. He is going incorrect with predominant Atal Hoon, an unimaginative 139-minute biopic of former Indian high Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Bullet-factor storytelling isn’t always new to a Hindi hagiography, however principal Atal Hoon commits the specific crime of sacrificing the famous persona of a statesman at the altar of new-age discourse. not for the primary time, someone of history is reduced to the language of the destiny. a man is reduced to a sequence of shallow moments.

An enforcing Retrospective Take

This loss of integrity is inextricably related to a loss of craft. the first few strains of the outlet disclaimer — “this film intends to inspire patriotism, nationalism and reverence of our first rate country not best among the young people but people at large” — set the degree. that is an unabashed tribute, so the timeline of a rustic exists to serve the timelessness of a frontrunner. The movie-making is stagey, stupid, laboured, and too worried to be curious. A Gold Spot bottle being opened for the duration of a movie screening of Sangam (1964) might be the sharpest period element.

The cinematography in the archival footage is more formidable than the starchy palette of the movie. (The lotus iconography is shot with 0 aesthetic.) The sound layout unfolds like a Hitchcockian nightmare; each other line reverberates thru the frames, making it hard to distinguish the voice-over from the lofty communicate. The history characters appear like they’ve stage fright at a dressing up ball.

fundamental Atal Hoon spans greater than six many years of Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s journey – ranging from his early days as a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) employee at some stage in the British Raj, to his eventful reign as prime minister during the Kargil warfare and Pokhran-II checks inside the past due Nineteen Nineties.

We see his upward push up the political ladder, however we by no means apprehend why he thinks a positive manner. His ideology is a given, and the movie unquestioningly is going with it. apart from his stint as editor of post-partition publications like Rashtradharma, there may be no backstory to his choice to view nationalism through the lens of non secular domination.

And apart from a few awkward scenes along with his followed own family, we don’t see any significant illustration of the unit as an entire in his life. It’s almost taken for granted that his career doubles up because the origin tale of the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP). As a result, the enemy is always inside: The Indian countrywide Congress (INC) is the overarching villain of the film. The writing often implicates itself in its pursuit of political one-upmanship, pitting the sufferer complicated of 1 birthday celebration in opposition to the superiority complicated of the opposite.

The cast’s performance

Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s ascent is described by using his capability to both impress or dethrone Congress leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru (“Mark my phrases, this guy will sooner or later be PM of India!”), Lal Bahadur Shastri (a montage of sullen put up-warfare expressions), Indira Gandhi (“I’m impressed along with your empathy for ladies regardless of being single”) or even a Bond-baddie-esque Sonia Gandhi. alas, the film doesn’t do a higher job of casting more youthful BJP figures consisting of Pramod Mahajan, Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, and most of all, L.k. Advani. Former president Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam receives the shortest straw in phrases of performance-to-parody ratio.

speaking of which: possibly the maximum disappointing factor of this soulless biopic is Pankaj Tripathi’s rendition of Vajpayee. It’s a turn that loses its fact in choppy mimicking styles — exaggerated hand and eye gestures, dramatic pauses and intonations, prosthetic tenderness and taunts. The chaste Hindi becomes greater shape than manner. The acting is simply too visible, even if it’s clean that Vajpayee is regularly ‘gambling’ the role of a charismatic speaker. His monologues within the Lok Sabha sound too rehearsed to be the narrative punchlines that they’re.

The void among intent and photograph is encapsulated by way of a scene in which the protagonist — the new top minister walking thru the halls of his office — asks approximately an empty space on the wall. while knowledgeable that the photograph of a former leader from an competition party became taken down from there, he requests the staff to restore the portrait to its original location.

This is supposed to signify the magnanimity of the man over the ruthlessness of the baby-kisser. except Tripathi makes it appear to be a surprisingly condescending gesture. It’s the sort of thing that sore winners say to rub their warring parties’ noses within the dust. I think this failed ambiguity is becoming in the grand scheme of the film’s issues. fundamental Atal Hoon pretends until it can now not fake. Make of this lyric what you’ll.

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