Movie Review: Mission Mangal

What do you do when you have a kickass story, the budget to cast 2 of the best actors in the industry, and a lovely ensemble cast? You go out and make a memorable movie. But like Super 30, this turned out to be a movie where the story was better than the story telling. 

And THEN, the importance of the Director comes through. It takes very special talent to botch up such great raw material, and Jagan Shakti has that rare talent. 

Do go, because it IS a story worth knowing. 

But don't believe all of it. The mission must have had a LOT of challenges, but the budget, the 9 day cyclone, a punishment posting, a rickety office with just the cat, 3 days when scientists doubled up as painters and interior decorators, and a comical internal politics villain were not among them. 

In fact, the government approved the entire 450 crore budget, the skies were clear, the project was not in isolation, but was led by the highest interdisciplinary team at ISRO. The team had 14 men and 3 women, and I don't think their gender mattered to anyone involved with the mission. 

I so wish that the director had stuck to showing us the scientists exactly as they are - human, methodical, thorough, precise, hardworking, going to work every single day, thinking ahead, making a little progress, checking the impact of any idea on all the allied disciplines, the sheer complexity of the project and how one goes about making such a massive thing happen. 

There was also no need to create stupid subplots that deal with religion based discrimination, teenage children angst and a husband who stays home etc. Especially since none of these was true. The women did have some issues at home, yes. The children were studying and they missed their mothers. But there were no injured husbands, no thwarted NASA ambitions, none of that. Where do you guys think up such stuff anyway? Every single senior scientist who worked on that mission had spent over a decade with the agency! 

What works for the film 

The acting

This is a no brainer. The casting was perfect and the acting really tried to make their laughable plot holes look credible. Really. 

The cinematography 

It is easy to overlook technical stuff like sound, costumes, light, and cinematography in a movie when they all go well. But cinematography in this movie had an additional challenge - it had to make everything credible - the ISRO control room, the images of Mars, and even the scenes on the road. They did a good job.

The costumes and the Art Direction

I can only imagine how hard it must have been to keep a straight face and deliver realistic sets when your Director is completely fictionalising the events in a laughable way. If sitting 60 feet from the screen made me seethe so much, imagine what it must have done to these people sitting 6 feet away from the BS that made these awesome decisions - "Yaar, launch se Pehle na, 9 din ka cyclone rakh dete hain. Rain hi Rain. Mission abort. and THEN.... suddenly, after Mission Abort, Rain stops..." 

The overall story 

Yes, this is a PHENOMENAL story. This is a story that deserves to be told. And heard. Seen. Absorbed. Even in its most threadbare form, even in its most fictionalised account, this is ONE HELL OF A STORY. Please don't penalise yourself for the stupidity of the Director. You deserve to see this one. 

What doesn't work for the film 

The Director 

Someone PLEASE change the director and make this movie again. Show us the real stuff. In this case, we kicked ass. Quite literally. Just show us what happened. Show us what pure hard work, grit, and rigour can do. 

The subplots 

I have already mentioned these - they are unreal, they distract, and more importantly, they are irritating. If you want to discuss teenage angst and how bad fathers are at managing it, please make a movie about that. That deserves a movie by itself. 

The stupid holes in the plot 

1. Which cyclone lasts 9 days? 

2. Mission Mangal was already in place and had a building. That means that mission had some budget before it started. Where did that initial budget go? 

3. If he did not have a team of designers at the start, where did this number of 800 crores come from? How did he know that it would take 800 crores before the design? 

4. Why make it ONLY about the women? 

5. Oh God, too many. 

And now, the fallacies (as many as I can remember, that is): 

1. The first GSLV launch was in 2001. We did not fail at GSLV. 

2. You cannot fry more than 3-4 pooris on full heat in a domestic kaDahi. 

3. You also cannot retro fit equipment from one craft to another. 

4. The entire budget of 450 crores was approved in one go by the government. The project was never stopped on account of a budget. 

5. No cyclone lasted 9 days. 

6. The home stories of the scientists are not known to us, but I am sure they did not involve a NASA application, a virgin, or any of the other fiction served to us rather unnecessarily. 

7. Abdul Kalam was alive then and very much in touch with the Mission team. In fact, he was at ISRO one day before the launch. (please see link embedded above) 

Final Rating: Do watch.