Parmanu - Good Portrayal Of A Successful Execution. Review on Parmanu: The Story of Pokhran

Parmanu is a story about how India became a nuclear state after successfully testing nuclear bombs at Pokhran in 1998. This was infact the 2nd attempt after a failed first attempt in 1995.

Movie begins with a scene in 1995 where some senior personnels make mockery of a committed young mind. Ashwath Raina(John Abraham) was the young officer who was of the opinion that India should match its counterparts by becoming a nuclear power. Members rejected this but the secretery of PM, Mr. Yadav though had some other ideas. He asked for a report on the plan from Raina and got approval from PM for its execution. He didn't read it properly and fully though. As a result of this, it became a failure and the blame of it was put on A Raina, who lost his job.

Moving onto 1998, Mr. Shukla was the secretery of PM and he meant business. He wanted to know the reason for the failure of 1995 and how to successfully execute it this time. Thus, A Raina who had started giving part-time tuitions got a new lease of life through it. He formed a team of 5 Pandavas along with himself being Krishna to execute what was a path-breaking plan.

The team of 6 consisted of people who were experts in their own field and each had a specific set of work to do. They went to Pokhran and started working on the plan. As USA was constantly keeping a track of the happenings in India, especially Pokhran through satellites, the work had to be carried out only during Blind Sides i.e. When there are no satellites crossing India.

In Pokhran, the team had to face lot of difficulties, most being keeping a track of time of blind spots and finishing the task within the time limit. The other big obstacle was the presence of a Pakistani spy and an American Scientist in Pokhran, who had a doubt about something brewing over there through Indian army. One other obstacle was surviving sand storm during day time.

Thus, how the team led by A Raina(Krishna) carry out the nuclear tests successfully in a month from 12th April to 11th May 1998 is what Pokhran is all about.

Most people know about the incident but not many know how it was carried out. Thus, this is an important film which has all the right ingredients in it be it execution, planning, humour, bonding, timing, scapegoat, triumph, love, understanding etc.

Like in Omerta, even Pokhran has real video clips of PM's of India, Pakistan and USA from that time which obviously provides more insights and is a good value addition.

Direction by Abhishek Sharma is good. There ain't any boring parts, second half is really exciting. The build-up, the formation and the execution was very well shown. Cinematography by Zubin Mistry is nice with some really good shots. Rameshwar Bhagat's editing is crisp and the length of the movie seems right for the kind of movie it is. Dialogues are decent overall. Music by Sachin-Jigar is average.

Coming to the performances, John Abraham gives a stupendous performance as A Raina. He has a brilliant built and performs such a matured act. Diana Penty is good as Nakul. Anuja Sathe as John's wife is excellent. She's acted brilliantly, looks beautiful and adds to the charisma of the movie. Boman Irani as Mr. Shukla gives a really good performance. Yogendra Tiku as Dr. Naresh Sinha(Arjun) is wonderful. It seems like acting comes naturally to him, he adds immensely to the humour quotient in the movie. Rest of the cast also add value to the movie, especially Darshan Pandya as the Pakistani spy.

Now, story written by Saiwan Quadras, Sanyuktha Chawla Sheikh and Abhishek Sharma is excellent. They've presented it in a beautiful way keeping the audience glued to the screen all throughout and cherishing the triumph in the end. So here's the thing:- Just like Kishore Da and Pancham Da were an ever dependable duo, just like Sachin and Dada opening in ODIs was a dream for Indians, just like VVS and Wall battling in Tests was a deadly duo, just like Hansal Mehta and Rajkumar Rao have become a dependable duo of late, it seems like even Saiwan Quadras and Sanyuktha Chawla Sheikh can be added in the dependable duo list because of Neerja and Pokhran now.

All in all, Pokhran is a very well-made movie with really good intentions. There is a bit of fiction to go with the real incidents shown. The real images shown at the end and the information of May 11 being celebrated as National Technology Day was a really good thing to do. I will rate it 4/5.