22 days ago
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Overview
PM Narendra Modi(2019), directed by Omung Kumar and starring Vivek Oberoi, is not a biopic but a glossy political advert masquerading as cinema. Released on May 24, 2019just hours after Narendra Modis landslide re-electionthe timing alone exposed its naked intent. Briefly halted by the Election Commission for violating the model code of conduct, the film eventually arrived as a 136-minute exercise in sycophancy rather than storytelling.
Story & Narrative
The film trundles through a tired rags-to-riches fantasy: tea seller, RSS pracharak, spiritual ascetic, destined ruler. Told through disjointed vignettes, it replaces narrative coherence with slow-motion rallies, bombastic background scores, and sermon-like dialogues. Complexity, doubt, or political contestation are entirely absent.
Whitewashing and Distortion
Historical inconvenience is treated with surgical precision. The 2002 Gujarat riotsover 1, 000 deadare grotesquely compressed and reframed as an opposition conspiracy, capped by a fictionalized savior moment featuring Modi rescuing a child. Political adversaries are reduced to comic-book villains, while uncomfortable truths, including Modis abandoned marriage, are simply erased.
Myth-Making Excess
The film abandons realism altogether in favor of cult mythology: divine visions, action-hero dodges, ghostly blessings from Gandhi and Patel. These moments push the film from propaganda into inadvertent parody, confusing governance with destiny and leadership with sainthood.
Historical Accuracy vs. Manufactured Myth
This cinematic exercise functions less as biography than as an image-laundering apparatus for an authoritarian personality cult. It anchors itself to only a handful of broadly verifiable markersModis birth in 1950, his elevation to Chief Minister in 2001 after the Gujarat earthquake, and the 2014 electoral sweepwhile dissolving everything else into a viscous slurry of myth, invention, and propaganda. Even Modis own autobiographical claims are not free of temporal incoherence. A telling example is his assertion that his mother Heeraben lost her mother during the Spanish Flu pandemic(19181920), despite Heeraben being born around 1922an inconsistency that, taken at face value, undermines the reliability of such biographical narratives. Rather than interrogating these contradictions, the film reproduces them uncritically, confirming critics verdict that it is not merely ahistorical but actively anti-historical.(NorthEast Now)
Performances & Craft
Vivek Oberoi commits fully to mimicrygestures, speech patterns, and mannerismsbut the script allows no room for nuance. Manoj Joshi(Amit Shah) and Zarina Wahab(the maternal figure) offer fleeting restraint before being relegated to symbolic props. Technically, the film is loud rather than competent: rally recreations look authentic, but sloppy editing, overwrought music, and clunky dialogue undercut any cinematic merit.
Politics, Timing & Controversy
Rushed into production to capitalize on the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the films Election Commission ban only amplified its notoriety. Post-release admissions of hurried editing under external pressure further exposed its industrial cynicism. What emerged was not urgency but artistic bankruptcy.
Critical Reception
Critics dismantled the film with near unanimity. Rotten Tomatoes records a catastrophic 0% critic score, while IMDb hovers around a dismal 3/10. Reviews labeled it a farcical hagiography and a relentless assault on truth. Even mildly charitable takes conceded it delivers exactly what a Modi biopic promisesuncritical worship.
Public Response & Polarization
Public reaction remains sharply polarized. Devout supporters praise it as inspirational and patriotic, while detractors dismiss it as crude propaganda and historical erasure. Even sympathetic viewers acknowledge its excessive melodrama and lack of authenticity. The discourse mirrors Indias political divide: ecstatic in echo chambers, derided everywhere else.
Box Office Performance
Despite post-election euphoria, the film flopped. On an estimated ₹;20 crore budget, it managed only ₹;2228 crore net in India before collapsing due to negative word-of-mouth. Modis political dominance failed to translate into theatrical footfalls.
Verdict
PM Narendra Modi is propaganda polished to a cinematic sheenreel politics in place of real insight. It demands devotion, not thought; reverence, not scrutiny. As cinema, it is hollow; as history, it is corrosive. Electoral power may command votes, but it cannot manufacture artistic legitimacy.
