Mission Raniganj: Akshay Kumar's latest rescue drama is a mixed bag

After saving Indians from a strike-torn Kuwait in "Airlift," "extraditing" a wanted man while posing as a patient in "Baby," advocating for the construction of toilets in rural areas in "Toilet: Ek Prem Katha," "orchestrating" the Mars Orbiter Mission in "Mission Mangal," and "fighting tooth and nail to prove that the Ram Setu is "man-made" in "Ram Setu,"

The actor's 'Great Bharat Rescue' sinks into a mine this time. His most recent film, Mission Raniganj, however, degenerates into the kind of movie where a one-line winning concept results in a chaotic, melodramatic movie due to the thin script and uneven performances.

Mission Raniganj: The Great Bharat Rescue, like the majority of modern Akshay movies, aims to depict a true story. In a race against time and using ingenuity and jugaad, that favorite Indian word that describes all kinds of hacks, big or small, 65 miners are rescued from a mine flooded with water and toxic gasses in Raniganj during this incident, which occurred in the final year of the 1980s. Many people are involved in this. The protagonist is, of course, Jaswant Singh Gill, played by Akshay.

Gill, a general manager (but mockingly referred to as a "junior officer" at a mining business), sprang into action as soon as the tragedy occurred but was hampered by a lack of resources as well as internal politics that were tainted by the ruthless unionism Bengal was experiencing at the time. Mission Raniganj has a fantastic one-line plot—a man's quick thinking and never-give-up attitude spurring him on to fight against all odds to launch a rescue operation guided more by the heart than the head—but the film's lack of substance prevents it from carrying on for the full 138 minutes.

Desai again overuses histrionics to extend out this particular section of history, just like he did with Rustom, another Akshay Kumar film. The end result is a movie with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer that screeches and shouts. Desai, who has obviously seen Lagaan a few times too many, apparently thinks that the continual cries and screams of men, women, children, and a street dog in the background add drama and emotion to his movie. Just to be clear, it doesn't.

The love story of Jaswant Gill, which was undoubtedly inserted into the script to offer Parineeti Chopra some much-needed work, doesn't either. Similar to Kesri, who starred opposite Akshay once more, Parineeti plays a character that is barely noticeable and adds little to the plot.

Mission Raniganj, to be completely honest (pun intended), is a mediocre drama about an evacuation. The boldness of Gill's idea to launch a homemade metal capsule underground by quickly drilling a 29-inch hole and rescue up to 65 trapped miners one at a time is well done, and Akshay mercifully keeps his act under control. Since this kind of challenging endeavor has never been undertaken before, there are numerous challenges along the way. However, Gill's great optimism and unwavering faith in the face of difficulty enable him to succeed.

As for the movie, we wish we could say the same. The over-the-top drama that has, regrettably, come to be associated with Bollywood commercial films of this genre is a key component of Mission Raniganj. With the beats being so loud that they frequently drown out both speech and feelings, grating background music is used from reel first to reel last to emphasize every phrase and emotion. The action frequently descends into saas-bahu territory because to a competition between Gill's jugaadu capsule and an incline being built by another party with vested interests to determine who can get to the miners first. The only exception is the head of the pack, Jameel Khan, who leads the miners under Ravi Kishan.

Naturally, there are also the caricatures. From Kharaj Mukherjee to Dibyendu Bhattacharya to Rajesh Sharma, nearly every outstanding actor from this region of the country is reduced to a cliche, capped by the accent that Bollywood believes every Bengali who speaks Hindi has. Even other notable actors, many of whom make significant contributions to any ensembles they are a part of, are underutilized. As Gill's boss, Kumud Mishra primarily shivers and puffs on a cigarette, frequently both at once. Another talented actor with nothing to do is Pavan Malhotra, who is sporting a wig that strangely resembles an upside-down flower pot with tendril-like growths. Shishir Sharma and Arif Zakaria share the same fate. The subtitles are much worse, as laddoo is occasionally mistranslated as "piece of ball."

To be honest, the final few minutes of Mission Raniganj are tense, but there is no fear when you realize that Akshay is in the capsule — hence the nickname "Capsule Gill" that the real-life hero acquired and which served as the inspiration for the movie's original title. Despite the possibility of failure, our resident Khiladi will succeed. After all, there are still a ton of "rescue" movies that need to be produced. "Vikram Lander" is loading now.