Story: The movie honours the late Jaswant Singh Gill, who rescued 65 miners who were stranded in a flooded coal mine in Raniganj, West Bengal, and is based on a true rescue effort from 1989.
Review: On November 13, 1989, a tragedy occurred at the Mahabir Colliery in Raniganj. The pressure from explosives used to remove coal caused the subsurface water table to burst, releasing a torrent of water and endangering the lives of the 65 trapped miners. When all other attempts to save the situation failed in a race against time, engineer Jaswant Singh Gill (Akshay Kumar) proposed drilling a well and using a specially designed rescue capsule. Without a crane and with corruption in CIL (Coal India), the movie depicts how Gill and his team of heroic professionals used the clever capsule to save all 65 miners.
As long as the narrative honours the courageous souls and the dangerous events that transpired, bringing genuine events to the big screen and paying tribute to India's unsung heroes is commendable. With all of its ability to understand human psychology and behaviour in life-threatening situations, Mission Raniganj falls well short of its objective.
There is a pattern to the films starring Akshay Kumar that explores societal issues or takes inspiration from India's history. A Punjabi wedding song opens the proceedings, followed by two brief sequences in which the heroine vanishes, the hero's slow-motion entrance scene, and a dramatic denouement in which he is praised as the ultimate saviour. The movies don't lack purpose; rather, what's lacking is their attempt to push limits and delve farther into the characters' lives. Beyond the basic details on the internet, no effort is made to comprehend Gill as a person.
The initial part is badly crafted. There isn't any character development to make you root for them. Poor visual effects and production value also don't help. The accompanying performances are likewise unimpressive, and the violent water that is ready to burst in the mine appears and sounds nothing like it. It seems overly dramatic, even from someone as experienced as Ravi Kishan, who portrays one of the miners. The story fails to appropriately highlight the seriousness of the issue through any dialogue. The movie picks up steam in the second part, but juvenile rivalries and pointless internal politics drag it down. In a blink-and-miss role, Parineeti Chopra scarcely makes an impression.
An evacuation thriller has the potential to be incredibly compelling, unsettling, and human-testing. For example, "Thai Cave Rescue" emotionally drew you into the lives of each individual. Director Tinu Suresh Desai's noisy, melodramatic picture makes a weak attempt to delve behind the surface, leaving you uninterested in a significant event. It's wonderful to see a valiant endeavor to rescue the underprivileged, not just billionaires in submersibles, but conveying the message requires more than simply intention.
English (US) ·