Legend Studios and Bhanushali Studios’ Main Atal Hoon (UA) is a biopic on our erstwhile Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee. It recounts his growing up years, his interest in serving the country, his entry into politics, his achievements, etc.
Writers Rishi Virmani, Ravi Jadhav, Amol Bhor and Mayuresh Bhor have written a story and screenplay, which are more like those of a docu-drama. Besides, not only does the drama appear one-sided, it also looks like a recounting of historical events rather than a human one, especially in the first half. Of course, the writing in the post-interval portion is much better. But all through the film, the script only touches upon aspects without being able to do much justice to the events. As a result, the audience is unable to fall head over heels in love with Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s character, which is what was needed. Although the script does make the viewer experience a sense of pride, it does not evoke enough patriotic sentiments in him. That’s partly because it lacks clap-worthy scenes. The emotion quotient is also completely missing. The dialogues, penned by the four writers, are good but not very punch-packed.
Pankaj Tripathi lives the role of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He plays the character with conviction and lends a lot of integrity, keeping the audience engaged with his splendid performance. Piyush Mishra is effective as his father. Pramod Pathak leaves a mark as Shyama Prasad Mukherjee. Raja Rameshkumar Sevak has his moments as L.K. Advani. Daya Shankar Pandey is good in the role of Pt. Deen Dayal Upadhyay. Ekta Kaul is natural as Rajkumari Kaul. Prasanna Ketkar is natural as Golwalkar Guruji. Ajay Purkar leaves an impression as Hedgewar. Payal Kapoor Nair makes her mark as Indira Gandhi. Harshad Kumar (as Pramod Mahajan), Haresh Khatri (as Jawaharlal Nehru), Rajesh Khatri (as Morarji Desai), Gauri Sukhtankar (as Sushma Swaraj), Sachin Parikh (as Mr. Kaul), Sarah Kiledar (as Namita Kaul), Eklakh Khan (as J.P. Narayan), P. Kumar (as Choudhary Charan Singh), Salim Mulla (as Abdul Kalam), Aurobindo Bhattacharjee (as Ram Jethmalani), Puneet Sharma (as Dr. Radhakrishnan), Aditya Raj Sen (as young Atal) and the others provide decent support.
Ravi Jadhav’s direction is quite nice but his narrative style should’ve been more emotional and personal. Music (Salim-Sulaiman, Payal Dev, Kailash Kher and Amitraj) is fairly good but not a single song is of the popular genre. Lyrics (Manoj Muntashir, Kailash Kher and Atal Bihari Vajpayee) are weighty. Monty Sharma’s background music is impactful. Lawrence Alex D’Cunha’s cinematography is of a good standard. Javed Karim’s action scenes are fair. Sandeep Sharad Ravade’s production designing is appropriate. Bunty Nagi’s editing is reasonably crisp.
On the whole, Main Atal Hoon is too ordinary to score at the ticket windows. It will appeal only to the class audience, that too in a very limited way, as it looks more like a propaganda film.
Released on 19-1-’24 at Inox (daily 6 shows) and other cinemas of Bombay thru PEN Marudhar Cine Entertainment. Publicity: quite alright. Opening: very dull. …….Also released all over. Opening was below the mark at most of the places.