A team of Indian scientists at ISRO takes on the special task of making India’s debut mission to Mars successfully.
A dream takes determination, effort and patience to make it happen and scientists at ISRO have gone through for years to make it a success. Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), more popularly called the Mangalyaan Mission is among the biggest achievement of ISRO. From impossible to becoming the first country to reach Mars after breaking barriers and ‘Mission Mangal’ recreates the same. The movie depicts how the team achieved the unthinkable unbelievable.
The movie opens in the period of 2010 and is led by Rakesh (Akshay Kumar) as they launch a rocket into outer space, but encounters failure. Tara (Vidya Balan) is also part of the team and they initiate the plan of ‘Mission Mangal’ which is considered fancy stuff which impossible. The optimistic and patriotic Rakesh and Tara decide to fight the odds and put India on the space achievement list. Dealing with all the pressures, they assemble a small team who is considered useless by others but Rakesh trusts them.
Writer-director Jagan Shakti’s movie makes the complex line movie simplified to be understood to common people. Story-telling has logic, home science and science which has a bit of fun to join the mix. The team has five strong women Tara, Eka (Sonakshi Sinha), Neha (Kirti Kulhari), Kritika (Taapsee Pannu) and Varsha (Nithya Menen) who work out brilliant plans to bring in strategies. The same team has Parmeshwar (Sharma Joshi) and Ananth (HG Dattatreya) who adds to the impetus of the team.
Mission Mangal simplifies its complex subject so that the audience can relate it irrespective of the age group. On the contrary, story-telling is a bit more focused on the characters and hence less towards the ISRO processes. Even the CGI is pretty average, but the feel of patriotism and national pride does cover up the minor issues the movie has. Akshay Kumar leads the cast with Vidya Balan as the perfect parallel lead.
The team provides a brilliant performance in the process of making India a grand space power. Akshay and Vidya are well supported by Sonakshi Sinha, Taapsee Pannu, Kirti Kulhari, Nithya Menen, Sharman Joshi and senior actor HG Dattatreya. Sanjay Kapoor in a brief cameo looks brilliant with the small screen space he has. Dalip Tahil, who plays the NASA-return scientist with an American-Indian accent burst laughter and makes the time engaging.
‘Mission Mangal’ makes good use of emotions and points out patriotism. It’s great to see a grand chapter of ISRO which made India among the few space superpowers. Irrespective of fluctuations in story-telling, Mission Mangal encourages us to see our dreams and fulfill them.
