It’s always fascinating to see how different cultures embrace familiar cinema genres.
Director Shantanu Bagchi’s Mission Majnu is an engaging — if occasionally unlikely — take on the one-man spy flick, as typified by the likes of James Bond and Jason Bourne. Scripters Parveez Sheikh, Aseem Arrora and Sumit Batheja have employed an actual event — the mid-1970s nuclear proliferation crisis between India and Pakistan — as the backdrop for the usual blend of scheming politicians, double agents, double-crosses and dire consequences in the event of failure.
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| Covert agent Amandeep Ajitpal Singh (Sidharth Malhotra) has become convinced that Pakistan is building a secret facility, in order to develop a nuclear bomb ... but where? And how can he supply proof, to his handlers back in India? |
The film opens with the successful completion of Operation Smiling Buddha, the code name (yes, seriously) given to India’s first successful nuclear bomb test, on May 18, 1974. Pakistan, still smarting from its quick defeat during the brief 1971 Indo-Pakistani War, objects globally to this development; India suspends further testing.
But Pakistan is being duplicitous. India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW, the equivalent of Britain’s MI6) receives reports that Pakistan is covertly building its own nuclear facility. But proof must be gathered, in order to expose this operation on the world stage.
At this point we meet Tariq (Malhotra), a cheerful Pakistani tailor with a talent for ingratiating himself with others. He meets and marries Nasreen (Rashmika Mandanna), a beautiful blind woman, during a somewhat jarring detour into Bollywood, complete with music, songs, colorful costumes and an elaborate wedding ceremony.
She becomes pregnant soon thereafter.
Ah, but this is all artifice. Unbeknownst to Nasreen, the lowly Tariq actually is Amandeep Ajitpal Singh, a RAW agent still haunted by the memory of watching his father commit suicide, after being accused of sharing Indian intelligence reports with Pakistan. Singh has spent his adult life determined to clear the family name, which makes him an ideal undercover agent in the eyes of RAW chief RN Kao (Parmeet Sethi).
This opinion isn’t shared by Sharma (Zakir Hussain), surely the most toxic field contact in the known universe, who verbally abuses Amandeep every time the poor guy checks in, most notably with repeated references to his father’s traitorous activity.
Sharma, convinced of the likely failure of Amandeep’s efforts to find proof of Pakistan’s nuclear activities, assigns another RAW agent — Sharib Hashmi, as the scruffy Aslam Usmania — to watchdog the situation.
To make matters even worse, India’s political winds shift. Operation Smiling Buddha and this covert operation were endorsed by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi (Avantika Akerkar), who is replaced in the next election by Morarji Desai (Avijit Dutt). He has little use for RAW’s intelligence data; he also seems far too cozy with Pakistan’s Gen. Zia-ul-Haq (Ashwath Bhatt).
This doesn’t make Amandeep’s assignment any easier … or his life any safer.
Malhotra has the athletic grace and physical prowess expected of an action hero, and he capably handles the character’s emotional complexity. Bad enough that he’s constantly reminded of his father’s failures; Amandeep makes the mistake of genuinely falling in love with Nasreen, which makes his work even harder.
We must tolerate, with a wink and a smile, the ease with which “Tariq” wheedles crucial information out of high-ranking officials, who apparently assume he’s harmless, being of a lower caste. (You’d think such officials would know better.)
Mandanna radiates love and trust as the gentle, impeccably poised Nasreen: every inch the devoted wife. She also looks great in the numerous colorful outfits created by costume designers Divvya Gambhir and Nidhi Gambhir.
Hashmi makes Aslam a coarse, shabby yet somehow endearing mutt, who keeps us guessing throughout the story: Is he friend or foe? On the other hand, Hussain atrociously overplays the sputtering, sneering Sharma; we practically expect the man to foam at the mouth.
The cat-and-mouse covert stuff builds to a clever and suspenseful third act, highlighted by a well-choreographed Bondian action sequence atop a moving train.
Even so, this film ultimately has far more in common with The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and other Le Carré novels. This is a solid effort by first-time feature director Bagchi, and I look forward to more of his work.
This film was entirely off my radar. Thank you for reviewing it!
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