Special on Amitabh Bachchan's 81st birthday

Why did 'Mission Raniganj: The Great Bharat Rescue' prove to be a laggard in comparison to Yash Chopra's film 'Kaala Patthar', despite the presence of state-of-the-art technology and resources...??

Whenever a filmmaker does not make a film honestly, then that film is bound to fall apart. This is a bitter truth. No matter how much someone tries to prove it wrong by giving arguments, he cannot succeed in his attempt. It is just a coincidence that when Amitabh Bachchan celebrated his 81st birthday on October 11, due to Akshay Kumar's film 'Mishanganj: The Great Bharat Rescue' being released on October 6, the 1979 film starring Amitabh Bachchan became popular among the people. Discussions about 'Kaala Patthar' also started. Amitabh Bachchan's film 'Kala Patthar' is counted as a timeless classic film, whereas the audience is not ready to watch Akshay Kumar's film 'Mission Raniganj: The Great Bharat Rescue'. Even if the figures of the producers are to be believed, 'Mission Raniganj: The Great Bharat Rescue' has collected only Rs 15.5 crore at the box office in six days. Many journalists, seeing Akshay Kumar's face, gave the film four stars to four and a half stars. However, the audience said that they do not trust these journalists.

When you make a film on a real incident, there is an honest effort to maintain the authenticity of the story, from the atmosphere, costumes, and characterization to the narration of that incident. Akshay Kumar's film "Mission Raniganj: The Great Bharat Rescue" does not meet this criterion. In fact, no one made any honest effort regarding this story, due to which the hard work of Kumud Mishra, Pawan Malhotra, Varun Wadola, Arif Zakaria, Sudhir Pandey, Jamil Khan, Omkardas Manikpuri, Divyendu Bhattacharya, Rajesh Sharma, Virendra Saxena and Shishir Sharma all went in vain. Whereas in ‘Kala Patthar’ there was a completely honest effort.

Source of the story of both films:

On 26 December 1975, there was an accident of sudden filling of a hundred million gallons of water inside the Chasnala coal mine of Dhanbad, in which about 375 people died. On that incident, Yash Chopra as a producer and director produced the film 'Kala Patthar', which was written by the duo of Salim Javed. This film was released on 9 August 1979. This film stars Amitabh Bachchan, Shashi Kapoor, Rakhee Gulzar, Shatrughan Sinha, Parveen Babi, Neetu Singh, Sanjeev Kumar, Poonam Dhillon, Prem Chopra and Parikshit Sahni.

In 1989, an accident took place in the Mahavir coal mine in the Raniganj area of West Bengal, in which 71 miners were trapped. An engineer named Jaswant Gill had launched a campaign to save their lives and the lives of 65 miners were saved through the capsule. And people had given Jaswant Gill the title of 'Capsule Gill'. On this incident, Vasu Bhagnani, Deepshikha Bhagnani, Jackky Bhagwani, and Ajay Kapoor produced the film 'Mission Raniganj: The Great Bharat Rescue' under the direction of Tinu Suresh Desai. Akshay Kumar has played the main character of Jaswant Gill in this film. Other casts include Parineeti Chopra, Ravi Kishan, Kumud Mishra, Pawan Malhotra, Varun Wadola, Arif Zakaria, Sudhir Pandey, Jamil Khan, Omkardas Manikpuri, Divyendu Bhattacharya, Rajesh Sharma, Virendra Saxena, Shishir Sharma etc.

Fault in intentions:

Films are always made for the audience. But does Akshay Kumar's film 'Mission Raniganj: The Great Bharat Rescue' stand true to this criterion...whereas 'Kala Patthar' stood true to this logic also. Actually, on the day the film 'Mission Raniganj: The Great Bharat Rescue' was released, Akshay Kumar met the media along with some of the cast of the film and Akshay Kumar said - "I have done Air Lift, Padman, Toilet Ek Prem Katha, Rustom and Films like 'Mission Raniganj: The Great Bharat Rescue' have been made not to earn money but to do good work, to spread true stories to the people and to give something to the society. These films of ours cost a lot. I enjoy doing cinema that impacts society. "I wish...what Akshay Kumar is saying was completely true.

If you are not honest. If your intentions are flawed, you cannot achieve success. This film is completely Akshay Kumar's film. Apart from his character, the author did not create any other character properly. Earlier the name of this film was 'Capsule Gill', then it was named 'Mission Raniganj: The Great Indian Rescue' and when BJP raised the issue of 'Bharat', to support Modi the film was named 'Mission Raniganj: The Great Bharat Rescue'. Should this attitude be considered correct?

The film ‘Mission Raniganj: The Great Bharat Rescue’ is a very bad film. There is no coordination between the script, locations, depiction of characters, acting of the actors, costumes, and production design. Whereas there is no such problem in ‘Kala Patthar’.

Location:

Let us first compare the two films and discuss the realistic locations. Yash Chopra himself went to inspect six coal mines for the filming of the film 'Kala Patthar'. Then he shot some scenes in the Chasnala mine and some scenes in the Giddi Kashari coal mine in Bihar. But due to the crowd there, problems started arising in the shooting, then Yash Chopra filmed the rest of the scenes of the film by setting up the coal mine set at Late Raj Kapoor's farmhouse in Loni and Film City Studio near Pune. He did not make any compromise with the location. But Akshay Kumar and his director Tinu Suresh Desai and producers went to London/UK just for subsidy and built sets there to film this film. In many scenes, this coal mine is not visible at all. Watching many scenes, one realizes that they have been chroma-coded.

Costumes:

Akshay Kumar claims that before acting in the film 'Mission Raniganj...’ Akshay Kumar had met Jaswant Gill and only on his request, he played his character like a Sardar wearing a turban. Well, at least Jaswant Gill had put a condition before Akshay Kumar to play his character as Sardar, otherwise, I don't know what would have been seen in the film. Similarly, the costumes of many artists are wrong. Whereas Yash Chopra tried to keep the costumes of every character realistic in 'Kala Patthar'.

There are many problems not only in Akshay Kumar's costumes and acting but also in his dialogue delivery.

Writing:

There is a world of difference in the writing of both films. When Salim Javed, the writer of the film 'Kala Patthar', was writing the script of the film, Amitabh Bachchan gave him some input. In fact, when Amitabh Bachchan was working in Kolkata, he visited some coal mines including Dhanbad, and also interacted with the workers there. According to the information received, Amitabh Bachchan had narrated the same experience to Salim Javed, whose Salim Javed used in screenplay writing. Now the writing of 'Mission Raniganj' seems to be dependent on God only. Yes yes! All three writers have written only a messy script. The unreliable script, average direction, and shallow performances push the audience into a dark abyss. The writers emphasized only on such scenes which could garner sympathy from the audience for Akshay Kumar's character, but this did not happen.

In the film 'Mission Raniganj', Jaswant Gill might have done the work of saving the laborers trapped in the coal mine because he might have been an emotional person. But Akshay Kumar, who plays the character of Jaswant Gill in the film, looks very tough like a soldier. Emotions are not visible anywhere in them. How can an emotionless person help others?

Whereas in the film 'Kala Patthar', to justify the way Vijay, Mangal, and Inspector Ravi along with Inspector Ravi try to save the miners, the past of both the characters along with Vijay Pal Singh has also been shown. For example -Vijay Pal Singh. Vijay Pal Singh (Amitabh Bachchan) is a disgraced merchant navy captain who is branded a coward for abandoning his ship and risking the lives of more than 300 passengers, is humiliated by society and is rejected by his parents. Feeling guilty over his cowardice, he starts working as a coal miner to forget his past. While Mangal is a fugitive criminal working in a mine to escape from the police.

The fight scenes and dialogues between Vijay Pal Singh (Amitabh Bachchan) and Mangal (Shatrughan Sinha) in ‘Kala Patthar’ are worth watching. Whereas in Akshay Kumar's film 'Mission Raniganj', the scenes and dialogues of the tension between Pasu (Jamil Khan) and Bhola (Ravi Kishan) inside the coal mining are unimpressive.

The way Amitabh Bachchan and Shatrughan Sinha's characters have 'tashan' in the film 'Kala Patthar', both the actors did not even talk to each other while staying in the same hotel. However, some people of that time say that in those days, there were no good relations between these two artists even in their personal lives.\

Were the scenes stolen from 'Kaala Patthar'?

Watching 'Mission Raniganj: The Great Bharat Rescue', many times one feels as if its writers have stolen some scenes from 'Kala Patthar'. Now, in the movie 'Kala Patthar' when Vijay Pal, Mangal, and Ravi try to save other miners, Ravi gets hurt in his leg. So in 'Mission Raniganj' Shaligram (Varun Wadola) gets injured in his leg.

Similarly, in the film 'Kala Patthar', when Mangal gets injured, Vijay takes him to Dr. Sudha (Rakhee Gulzar) for surgery. Now there is no such scene in ‘Mission Raniganj’. But Jaswant Gill's wife Nirdosh Kaur Gill is pregnant with the intention of showing a female doctor in the film when she goes to consult a doctor. The interesting thing is that in the film, the character of Nirdosh Kaur Gill (Parineeti Chopra), the wife of Jaswant Gill, seems forcibly imposed.

In the 1970s, the technology was not good, yet Yash Chopra was successful in making an excellent and entertaining film "Kala Patthar" based on the Chasnala mine disaster, unfortunately, despite the presence of all the modern technology and equipment, Tinu Suresh Desai could not accomplish that feat. This film is quite weak at the technical level.

Box-Item- One:

In the film 'Kala Patthar', Shashi Kapoor was supposed to play the character of Shatrughan Sinha’s Mangal, and Rishi Kapoor was to play the character of Shashi Kapoor's Ravi. But when Rishi Kapoor refused, a change happened. Similarly, Yash Chopra wanted to cast Dharmendra in the role of a Punjabi truck driver, but Dharmendra refused to play this small role, then Parikshit Sahni was cast in the role of a Punjabi truck driver.

Box Items: Two - Film Stories:

Story of the movie “Kala Patthar”:

Vijay Pal Singh (Amitabh Bachchan) is a disgraced merchant navy captain who is branded a coward for abandoning his ship and risking the lives of over 300 passengers, vilified by society, and rejected by his parents. Feeling guilty over his cowardice, he starts working as a coal miner to forget his past. He meets and befriends Ravi (Shashi Kapoor), the engineer in charge of the mines. He makes another colleague named Mangal (Shatrughan Sinha) his enemy, who is a fugitive criminal who works in the mines to avoid the police. Whenever Vijay tries to sleep for some time, his past starts haunting him. He sees that Mangal is creating trouble for the coal miners, and Vijay tries to defend the miners against Mangal, there are some fights between them, and then one day Mangal gets injured in an incident and Vijay helps him. The doctor Sudha did his surgery but Mangal lost his life. They eventually become friends, shedding blood to save Mangal's life. One person who supports Vijay is Dr. Sudha Sen (Rakhee Gulzar), who tries to move Vijay forward by confronting him about his past. Ravi and Mangal have their own romance with Anita (Parveen Babi) and Channo (Neetu Singh) respectively.

Seth Dhanraj (Prem Chopra) is a greedy boss who makes life difficult for coal miners by giving them poor equipment, less than adequate medical supplies, and a lack of facilities. Vijay, Ravi, and Mangal come together to fight for justice against Dhanraj. The mines get flooded, endangering the lives of hundreds of workers trapped underground. Ravi, Vijay, and Mangal succeed in saving the miners, however, Ravi gets injured in his leg and Mangal dies.

Story of the film ‘Mission Raniganj: The Great Bharat Rescue’:

At the center of the story is mining engineer Jaswant Singh Gill (Akshay Kumar), who apart from saving the people trapped in an accident inside a coal mine, has no room for indifferent attitude in his work. He fires an incompetent employee, who goes to his gangster boss for help. The Raniganj area is new for Gill. Gill is a strict disciplinarian, but he cares about his people. He considers himself more of a miner than an engineer. He still doesn't know about most of his miners when the disaster occurs. Gill loses six miners, but he is unwilling to leave 65 people to die while everyone else has given up hope.

When the news of the Mahavir coal mine flooding accident is received, Jaswant Gill forgets that his wife Nirdosh Kaur Gill (Parineeti Chopra) is about to become a mother. He gets engaged in the campaign to save 65 people trapped in this accident. Then they get the help of Bindal (Pawan Malhotra), an expert in welding work. Union leader Govardhan Roy (Rajesh Sharma) is also with him. Tapan Ghosh (Virendra Saxena) also comes forward to help them. At the same time, some people including D Sen are busy taking advantage of this disaster for personal gain. These people want to defame Jaswant Singh Gill and his boss Ujjwal (Kumud Mishra).

-Shantiswarup Tripathi