- Kangana Ranaut stars in Bharat Bhhagya Viddhaata, a survival thriller set during 26/11 attacks
- The film focuses on nurses who confronted terrorists at Mumbai's Cama Hospital in 2008
- Manoj Tapadia directs a taut narrative highlighting nurses' courage amid terror attack chaos
She has had a choppy ride at the box-office of late. Her last four Hindi releases (Thalaivi, Dhaakad, Tejas and Emergency) underperformed big time.
Could Bharat Bhhagya Viddhaata, a female-centric film set in a hospital under a terror attack, be the throw of the dice that could turn things around for Kangana Ranaut?
The actor spares no effort, leading the charge with admirable restraint in a survival thriller that does well to never get ahead of itself. It stays well within and thrives on the limits that it sets for itself.
On her part, Ranaut, whose banner Manikarnika Films is the lead producer, ensures that she does not become bigger than the film, which often tends to be the bane of Bollywood movies that are bankrolled by stars.
The ensemble cast of Bharat Bhhagya Viddhaata isn't swamped out by Ranaut's presence. While she enhances the lustre of the film, the script stays focused on a group rather than only an individual.
The film celebrates the unsung nurses who stood up against two Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists, including Ajmal Kasab, when they attacked Mumbai's Cama Hospital on the night of November 26, 2008.
Recreating a lesser-known chapter of the 26/11 terror attacks, writer-director Manoj Tapadia creates a taut and tensile narrative tapestry that brings into sharp relief the dimensions of what can happen when a routine day at work turns into a nightmare.
Ranaut plays a fictionalized version of the real-life nurse who, on that fateful night, saved 20 pregnant women, including one hypertension-afflicted patient who went into labour when the terrorists stormed the hospital.
She is the pivotal figure and the film never lets the audience lose sight of that fact. But to the credit of Tapadia's screenplay, the lead does not get to hog all the footage. The ensemble gets its due.
The opening sequence of the film features Ranaut's character, Geeta Gandhare, and a police inspector (Sayaji Shinde in a cameo) in a conversation that kicks off a brief prelude. The cop exhorts the nurse to shed her fears and appear for the identification parade to nail Kasab.
The next sequence plays out around Geeta's dining table. Her husband appeals to her not to stick her neck out and invite trouble for herself and her school-going daughter. The nurse is wracked by doubt. Though crucial, this dilemma of hers is by no means the film's principal conflict.
That erupts only in the second half after the film has introduced us to, and created significant moments around, the other key cast members, including Girija Oak, Smita Tambe and Rasika Agashe, all of whom play nurses and deliver performances that add significant depth and range to the storyline.
There have been many Mumbai thrillers (and a web series) that have brought different aspects of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks to the screen but Bharat Bhhagya Viddhaata does not feel like one film too many. And that is a bit of a marvel.
The film does not stray from its core. It employs a largely unflashy tone to celebrate the courage of the nurses who went beyond the line of duty and did not let "protocol and procedures" stop them from risking life and limb.
The constraints that they work within is brought to the fore in an early scene in which the nurses stage a vehement protest against a disciplinary memo that has been handed out to one of them by the hospital superintendent who insists that protocol is sacrosanct. All rule and regulations are thrown to the winds when extraordinary events upend everything.
In portraying the actions of the nurses and other health workers at the hospital, the film hovers for a fair amount of time on the Punjabi-speaking terrorists, two young bloodthirsty men who rampage through the building inflict as much damage as they can.
Fear courses through the hospital but the nurses, hiding in different crannies of the multistoried health facility, stand their ground even as they do not stop attending to patients in need of immediate critical care. It is a race against both time and fate.
While Bharat Bhhagya Viddhaata is not completely free from the predictable platitudes that the genre demands, the film manages to keep the aberrations down to the bare minimum as the action unfolds and the nurses do all that they can to keep the patients safe.
Broadly, the film has three distinct phases and textures. Cinematographer Ayan Sil a lot to work with and he proves equal to the task.
The first half is devoted mostly to delineating the principal characters and their families, with Geeta and her home receiving the most attention. It highlights the bonhomie that prevails among the nurses. All the banter that the ladies indulge provides a contrast to what lies in store for them.
This part of the film ends with the two terrorists barging into the hospital. In the half that follows, the hospital's interiors are engulfed in darkness - the lights are switched off in all the wards - and the action takes place in dimly lit passages and corners, creating shadows and silhouettes that heighten the air of menace.
Brightness returns to the film in the final passages. Even as the nurses deservedly bask in the glow of their bravery, hospital politics continue to plague them and life goes back to workaday normal for them.
Bharat Bhhagya Viddhaata has its share of spills but because it isn't what Bollywood films of this kind often turn into - shrill bombast and hyper-masculine fulmination - it does not veer too far off its chosen path.
Helped along by its unwavering technical finesse, a Kangana Ranaut in fine fettle and the consistent supporting acts, the film punches well above its weight.