Movie Review: Prime Minister Narendra Modi

Producers- Ssandeep Singh, Suresh Oberoi and Anand Pandit

Director- Omang Kumar

Star Cast- Vivek Oberoi, Zarina Wahab, Boman Irani, Darshan Kumar

Genre- Biopic

Rating- **1/2

Jyothi Venkatesh

The film chronicles Narendra Damodardas Modi’s life and events from his tea-selling days in the train to his days spent rallying for his desh as well as his pyare  deshwasis, leading up to his swearing-in ceremony as the Prime Minister of India in 2014, steering ahead of all controversies associated with him, including his marriage. The film is helmed by Omung Kumar, who is best known for directing the Priyanka Chopra starrer Mary Kom. The movie has been shot primarily in Gujarat, Mumbai and Uttarkashi. The Modi biopic has been released simultaneously in 23 languages.

To his credit, In the title role of Narendra Damodar Modim Vivek Oberoi doesn’t mimic the Prime Minister in speech or style, and instead sets out to play him with a sanctimonious calmness aided by a servile and doctored half baked script that renders the character omnipotent.

Manoj Joshi who plays the role of BJP President Amit Shah has hardly any footage in the film and I wonder why the BJP chief’s full name is muted out in the film.  Boman Irani in a cameo comes alive as Ratan Tata as does Zarina Wahab playing Modi’s mother. In an ocean of mediocrity, thankfully, Anjan Shrivastav does a reasonably good take on Vajpayee without resorting to gimmicky mimicry. Zarina Wahab does justice to her character as Modi’s mother and her track is perhaps the only one to make the viewer feel emotional.

Though a lot of fictional liberties have been taken in the film by the director with the avowed objective of whitewashing the image of Modi, including the character of a hostile TV journalist played by Darshan Kumar, who is shown as a stooge of a corrupt industrialist called Aditya Reddy, played by Prashant Narayanan, the film succeeds in presenting a laundered image of the Prime Minister who has come back with a big bang in the recently elections. 

The unofficial biopic on Modi tries its level best to whitewash the biggest blot on Modi’s image—2002’s anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat and to a large extent succeed in the mission. Though the release of the film was postponed twice by the Election Commission because the elections were approaching, its release now could not have been better timed as Modi has been resurrected by the tidal wave after the elections.

It is a onetime watch, if you are a fan of Narendra Damodar Modi

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Tags: Bollywood, Bollywood News, Bollywood Updates, Television, Telly News, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Movie Review, Vivek Oberoi, Zarina Wahab, Boman Irani, Darshan Kumar