You are curious about the characters and admire their bravery, and yet the drama never really cuts deep as it should, notes Mayur Sanap.
Key Points
- Director Manoj Tapadia aims for a stirring human drama unfolding amid a grim crisis.
- There’s this constant effort to push your emotional buttons rather than trusting the story’s inherent strength.
- The film deserves credit for not portraying Kangana’s journey as a grand heroic transformation.
Bharat Bhhagya Viddhaata, which is inspired by true events, celebrates its characters as ‘unseen heroes’. They are healthcare workers who risked everything and safeguarded hundreds of patients at Mumbai’s Cama And Albless Hospital during the 26/11 terror attack.
There is a quiet moment in the film where a nurse character fondly looks at her uniform.
A scene like that often plays out with more glamorous jobs, like a pilot looking at a flight jacket or a racer at their suit. Here you see the same pride in her eyes.
For a human story unfolding against a tragedy, this is a powerful premise, even though it is not particularly novel.
The horrors of the 26/11 have been revisited in several films and shows. Most notably in Nikkhil Advani’s Mumbai Diaries 26/11, where the focus was shifted to the emergency room of the Cama Hospital. The doctor characters steered much of that story.
Bharat Bhhagya Viddhaata chooses a different perspective. It turns the attention to a bunch of nurses who show grace under pressure in their line of duty. The doctors mostly stay in the background.
There are all trappings for a taut tear-jerker here, but the film is curiously comfortable with all-to-familiar genre tropes and never quite builds the emotional intensity a story like this requires.
What’s Bharat Bhhagya Viddhaata About?
Early in the film, a family argument is interrupted by a loud noise that leaves everyone panicked. A woman gets up, looks out of the window and calmly assures it was only a tyre burst. The family breathes a sigh of relief.
That woman is Gita, played by Kangana Ranaut, and the scene is meant to underline her stout-hearted character.
The moment takes place weeks after Gita has survived the ordeal of the 26/11 attacks at Cama Hospital where she works as a nurse.
A flashback takes us back to Cama Hospital, where we see how Gita and her nurse staff navigate demanding job at a government hospital with smile son their faces. They share lunches, travel together on local trains, and form close bonds outside their demanding jobs. This slightly too chirpy introduction pretty much foreshadows a sinister turn of events.
Soon the news of the terrorist attack at the nearby CSMT station arrives. In no time, the hospital is filled with injured, terrified people seeking shelter.
The hospital staff takes it upon themselves to keep everyone safe while waiting for help to arrive.
Where Bharat Bhhagya Viddhaata Turns Saggy
Director Manoj Tapadia, who has also written the story, aims for a stirring human drama unfolding amid a grim crisis. But there’s this constant effort to push your emotional buttons rather than trusting the story’s inherent strength.
You are curious about the characters and admire their bravery, and yet the drama never really cuts deep as it should.
The other nurse characters include a woman who is ridiculed by her family over her job (Girija Oak), another one is struggling to keep her family together (Smita Tambe), and there’s a younger one searching for a suitable groom without much luck (Esha Dey). The film tries to establish how their personal lives are often overlooked by a job that leaves them overworked.
Yet, beyond these brief glimpses, the film gives only a partial view of who these women are beyond their hospital uniforms.
The action bits are another disappointing aspect.
The idea here is compelling: A place dedicated to saving lives suddenly turns into the site of bloodbath. It could have been a display of heart-racing anxiety or exploration of characters under extreme pressure, something which Neerja and the Dev Patel starrer Hotel Mumbai so effectively did. Instead, the film settles for easy sentimentality.
When a senior character announces it’s their last day on the job, you know where fate is headed. Here, that’s a security guard played by Vijay Gokhale.
Gita’s family dynamic comes through her loving husband (Prasad Oak), but he is eventually reduced to reaction shots during his wife’s hospital ordeal.
Not to mention, the two terrorists are reduced to caricature villains whose portrayals remain as uninspired as possible.
Kangana Ranaut Leads A Sincere Cast
Kangana is shown as an everyday woman caught in an extraordinary situation, and the film deserves credit for not portraying her journey as a grand heroic transformation. In fact, some of its most impactful moments are the quiet ones.
A dialogue-less scene in which she helps a woman in labour reach the operating room feels genuinely humane and believable. But the film can’t resist giving her overly dramatic lines like, ‘Mujhe meri duty karne se koi terrorist nahin rok sakta.’
In those moments, the ordinary woman disappears and the heroine takes over.
The actors around her fare better, largely because they feel more natural.
Smita Tambe, in particular, stands out as a shayari-loving nurse who brings warmth and vulnerability to the film. Some of the most touching moments belongs to her character when she is in tough situations.
The film also has an odd habit of repeating Marathi dialogue in Hindi. These characters are supposedly Marathi-speaking women, so the repetition feels unnecessary.
The film moves from one action set piece to another, many of which play out like scenes we have already seen in similar terror dramas.
Once the ordeal is over, the film resorts to Kangana’s monologue about one’s duty, a kind of speech that typically appears in Akshay Kumar’s patriotic films. This is followed by a closing slate carrying Narendra Modi’s words honouring working citizens of the country.
Nothing like nationalist cinema that never lets you forget it is nationalist cinema.
