The film-making in Mission Majnu is so inept that ranting about how it shamelessly wears its jingoism as a badge of honour would actually amount to giving this poorly envisioned and even more poorly executed film too much importance. But given that this is a job that needs to be done, let’s just spend the next 800 words telling you why Mission Majnu is possibly one of the most amateurishly mounted Bollywood films seen in recent times. An uninspiring experience which makes you wonder how and why makers continue to take the intelligence of the audience, as as well as our ability to discern good from bad, for granted.
Any story about an Indian spy infiltrating into Pakistan, living there as a common citizen and inspired by true events, will invariably be compared to Raazi. The Meghna Gulzar-directed film, released in 2018, had Alia Bhatt’s Sehmat marrying into a Pakistani family, making that country her home even as she gathered key intel and sent it back home. If parts of what Sehmat did seemed gauche and amateurish, it was because she wasn’t a hard-nosed spy brought up on years of focus-on-the-fish-eye training. She was just a young girl with a passion to carry on her father’s duty to the country after his death.
Mission Majnu, on the other hand, is an embarrassingly directed and half-heartedly enacted exercise from start to finish. Raazi humanised the enemy and didn’t resort to chest thumping; Mission Majnu is just the opposite. Instead of presenting it as a formidable nemesis posing a dangerous threat, especially with its growing ambition to becoming a nuclear super power, Pakistan is almost parodied here. While this may have been done to bring on the laughs in what is supposed to be a serious film, the joke is clearly on writers Aseem Arora, Sumit Batheja and Parveez Shaikh, with the film itself ending up as unintentionally laughable.
And that starts with the title itself. The film is named after the mission that forms its core, with Sidharth Malhotra’s Tariq as the ‘majnu’ on a ‘mission’. Tariq, working as a tailor in 1970s Rawalpindi, is actually Amandeep, a RAW agent who, in a Chak De! India moment, also has to face constant taunts for being the son of a ‘gaddaar’, with his late father being accused of peddling off key secrets to the enemy. Amandeep is, therefore, on a mission to not only protect his country, but also to compensate for his father’s actions.
It’s impossible to take Mission Majnu seriously because before anything else, it kicks off with a love story. Tariq lays his eyes on the visually challenged Nasreen (Rashmika Mandanna) and despite opposition from her father — and within the span of a single immensely forgettable song — the two get married. A few scenes later, she’s pregnant, with Nasreen being a woman with practically no agency. Rashmika has a luminous presence, but this is a part that makes no impact whatsoever.
Tasked with finding out the location of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb facility, Tariq embarks on a one-man mission, even as he is constantly insulted by his handler (a one-note Zakir Hussain) for his father’s betrayal. Tariq, however, doesn’t have to stretch himself much. Just lurking in street corners miraculously (and, of course, conveniently) makes him come across top secret information being shared, and he somehow always manages to land up at the right place at the right time. His modus operandi involves very little intelligence or ingenuity, but he always seems to be stumbling on to some important information. When the nuclear plant is discovered, its laughable visual effects make Walter White’s meth-making setup in his basement in Breaking Bad look like Kashiwazaki-Kariwa.
Mission Majnu is the kind of film that Netflix was a dump yard for until a few years ago. However, given some serious backlash and dismally low numbers, the streaming platform had upped its game recently, exercising serious quality control, both in terms of its original programming as well as its acquired titles. Mission Majnu, however, falls into the category of other bargain-basement Netflix films like Drive and Mrs Serial Killer (both coincidentally featuring Jacqueline Fernandez).
Directed by first-timer Shantanu Bagchi, Mission Majnu labours on for well over two hours, with not a single scene or moment putting you on the edge of your seat, as one would expect from a film of this genre. The film thrives so much on convenience and contrivance that by the time you reach the end, you feel very manipulated as a viewer. The ending — more jingoistic than emotional — is the final nail on the coffin.
Nothing can redeem a film as uninspiring as this. And a woefully miscast Sidharth Malhotra doesn’t really help much. The actor is earnest, but the effort clearly shows, especially in the scenes where he desperately tries to be street smart. Sharib Hashmi inexplicably gives off a ‘Quick Gun Murugan’ vibe and the always reliable Kumud Mishra is, well, reliable, but not much else.
Mission Majnu is the kind of film that doesn’t even warrant a lazy, time-pass watch. Catch a nap instead. At least you will be spared a nightmare.
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Mission Majnu
Director: Shantanu Bagchi
Cast: Sidharth Malhotra, Rashmika Mandanna, Kumud Mishra, Sharib Hashmi, Zakir Hussain, Parmeet Sethi
Running time: 129 minutes
