Main Atal Hoon movie review: Two Thumbs Up!, One For the Statesman, One For The Actor

Main Atal Hoon movie review

It’s a big challenge to tell the story of one of India’s most popular and charismatic political figure who was loved for his love for the nation and his impeccable oration and not just for his party’s right-wing stand. Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee belonged to those times when politician respected their rivals (the famous Nehru portrait scene is also there in the movie). Ravi Jadhav in Main Atal Hoon traces the journey of Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee from his law student days till his third tenure as Prime Minister of India and that seems to be quiet a task. India saw the freedom struggle, partition, emergency, wars, mandir masjid issue, reservation issue, caste politics, globalisation, death of Indira Gandhi and Rajeev Gandhi and so on.

To accumulate all these in a two hours and seventeen minutes movie is a very strong challenge.

So, Ravi Jadhav in his retelling of Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s life on the silver screen highlights incidents after incidents right from his early RSS days to Shyama Prasad Mukherjee’s death, to Nehru’s death, China War, PM Shashtri’s mysterious death, Jay Prakash movement, Janata Party triumph, Charan Singh episode, Indira Gandhi coming back to power, the birth of Lotus, assassination of Indira Gandhi and then the mandal kamandal issue, the ram janmabhoomi movement and so on.

In the midst of issues and movements, the insight of the person the leader we want to know – Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee gets lost.

The above-mentioned issues also generate a mix feeling. Some get emotionally connected and some don’t.

Those who are aware of the right-wing politics from the seventies etc will have a better impact but for a layman its too much happening.

But in spite of all these hurdles and a bit slow pace, Ravi Jadhav manages to hold your attention with his pitch perfect setting and depicting Pankaj Tripathi as Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The brilliance of Pankaj Tripathi in his vocabulary, body language as Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee is a masterclass that upcoming aspirants should follow.

The movie scores in its small moments that make a big impact like the scene when Atla (fondly called by Vajpayee’s family) finds himself in the same class where his father Krishna Bihari Vajpayee (Piyush Mishra) is also studying law.

The speeches, poetry by the grown-up Vajpayee are pitch perfect and evoke nostalgia.

Lawrence Alex Dcunha’s cinematography is pure class. Salim-Sulaiman, Payal Dev, Kailash Kher, and Amritraj inspiring music adds to the flavour. Monty Sharma’s background score is very effective.

Other actors shine bright as well.

Raja Rameshkumar Sevak, as LK Advani is outstanding.

Gauri Sujhtanker as Sushma Swaraj is fabulous.

Yogendra Patwal as Arun Jaitley leaves a solid impact.

Daya Shankar Panday as Deendayal Upadhyaya is quite good

And of course, Piyush Mishra as Krishna Bihari Vajpayee – endearing.

And last but not the least Ekta Kaul as Rajkumari Kaul makes her presence felt strongly.

Main Atal Hoon – final words

It’s a movie about one of India’s most charismatic leader, the prominent figure during the birth of BJP, the three-time PM of India who was loved for his love for the nation, story of those times when politicians respected their rivals. Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee was one of the greatest Statesman of India and Pankaj Tripathi is one of the finest actors we have.