When there are budget problems in the Mars Orbiter Mission undertaken by an ISRO scientist on a dare -- because a NASA snob said it couldn’t be done -- a woman scientist suggests that they use equipment from another project that is on hold. “Why waste, na?” she says. To which her male colleague comments that women turn leftovers from dinner into breakfast, because, why waste? Their superior quips, “You women can’t tell the difference between home science and space science?”
Jagan Shakti’s Mission Mangal constantly condescends to women, and has a laughably slapdash attitude to space science. However, the producers and the director seem to understand that a majority of Indians may not understand science, but they get ‘jugaad;’ push the patriotic buttons, add some phoney woman power, some humour, turn the outsider into a villain and this rocket will reach Mars and beyond.
Underneath all the scientific jargon and gleaming lab gizmos, Mission Mangal is the always appealing story of the fighter, who when told that something cannot be done, wants to prove the naysayers wrong. Never mind that the film turns the real Mangalyaan mission (by the Indian Space Research Organisation) into a comedy, the fact remains that India was the first Asian nation to have a satellite reach the Martian orbit, the first to do it in one attempt and at a very low cost. Of course, the story deserved a movie -- even though it seems to have been also inspired by the Hollywood film Hidden Figures, about a group of African-American women who worked on the US space programme.
Akshay Kumar plays Rakesh Dhawan, the never-say-never space scientist, who, along with Tara Shinde (Vidya Balan) takes on the challenge of the Mars Orbiter Mission, without accepting help from any foreign agency.
A NASA scientist of Indian origin (Dalip Tahil) discourages him, and to stymie the project, sends a bunch of junior scientists -- four women (hence inferior) and a man, plus one old guy (HG Dattatreya) on the verge of retirement. With the budget slashed to half, the team has to find low cost and workable solutions to every problem.
They are trained scientists and engineers, but ideas strike in an ad hoc fashion, while frying puris or from a design on a cushion cover -- there are dozens of these ‘facepalm’ moments. The women are given rather pedestrian back stories -- Tara has a nagging husband and rebellious kids, because she is “never home”, Neha Siddiqui (Kirti Kulhari) can’t find a place to stay because she is Muslim and a divorcee, Kritika Agarwal (Taapsee Pannu) has a wounded soldier at home and an exasperated driving instructor who can’t get her to learn; Eka Gandhi (Sonakshi Sinha) is the ambitious and promiscuous single woman; Varsha Pillai (Nithya Menen) has a nasty mother-in-law and gets pregnant while the mission is on; Parmeshwar Naidu (Sharman Joshi) is the desperate bachelor who is told to stay away from Mars.
In the midst of all the deadline drama, they actually get time to paint their lab and dance to the catchy ‘Dil mein mars hai’ song.
It’s a comic book take on the successful space mission, with competent performers, which is probably why it will work with audiences; plus these days Akshay Kumar can do no wrong!
