Director Sashi Kiran Tikka and actor-writer Adivi Sesh’s tribute to Main Sandeep Unnikrishnan is all coronary heart
Director Sashi Kiran Tikka and actor-writer Adivi Sesh’s tribute to Main Sandeep Unnikrishnan is all coronary heart
There are other ways to strategy a biopic of a soldier who was killed on a mission. One can be a medical strategy that delineates the soldier’s mettle, culminating in a nail-biting end that’s replete with minute particulars of the dangerous operation. The opposite can be by way of an emotional lens, trying to seize the person behind the hero. Director Sashi Kiran Tikka and actor Adivi Sesh who has written the story and screenplay of Main, impressed by the lifetime of Main Sandeep Unnikrishnan who was killed within the 26/11 assaults of 2008, select the latter methodology. Their try will not be excellent, however efficient sufficient to depart viewers moved and pondering of troopers who stake the whole lot for the nation. And fortunately, there aren’t any jingoistic overtones.
Throughout pre-release interviews, Sashi talked about how Sandeep’s mother and father recalled recollections of their son, in a non-chronological method, with the stronger recollections popping up first. Within the movie, Ok Unnikrishnan (Prakash Raj) recollects Sandeep’s (Adivi Sesh) recollections in the same, non-linear method. Everyone knows how Sandeep’s story would finish throughout the 26/11 assaults. However Main will not be solely about him combating until his final breath, saving hostages at The Taj Mahal Palace, Mumbai, from the terrorists. It’s about Sandeep, the particular person, whose loyalty to the nation got here above his duty in direction of his mother and father, sister and partner.
Main
Forged: Adivi Sesh, Saiee Manjrekar, Sobhita Dhulipala
Route: Sashi Kiran Tikka
Music: Sricharan Pakala
Languages: Telugu and Hindi
Sure parts really feel airbrushed, just like the childhood scenes that attempt to set up Sandeep’s fascination for the uniform. And later, when he intervenes in a home abuse incident, unmindful of the chance. We get that Sandeep put others’ security above him, however perhaps these segments may have been written and depicted extra successfully. The Military coaching montages are picturised superbly however don’t present Sandeep’s transformation. Did he fail, face setbacks and study from them? We don’t get sufficient of that studying curve. He’s earnest, decided and aces practically the whole lot.
However these are minor misgivings within the bigger image. As a plot gadget, narrating Sandeep’s story by way of his mother and father Unnikrishnan and Dhanalakshmi helps to offer the emotional gravitas. There’s a fragile, delicate method during which the connection between Sandeep and Isha (Saiee Manjrekar) is portrayed, with its breezy romance, warts and all. At one level, when Isha laments that nobody would know the sacrifices made by a commando’s household, it hits the precise spot.
A deeply transferring phase additionally includes Isha, and later Sandeep, telling one another at essential moments, ‘It’s higher you have no idea’. Abburi Ravi’s dialogues convey rather a lot with out melodrama.
A big portion of the movie unfolds inside The Taj Mahal Palace resort the place the Mumbai police and the elite NSG commandos have to make sense of the maze forward of them. The terrorists have the blueprint of the resort and the entry playing cards, whereas the protective forces solely have their braveness, other than their rifles. There are a number of wow moments throughout the operation, virtually like a mainstream motion thriller. However it’s finished with out diluting the battle that’s on. There may be additionally a terrific phase the place Sandeep manipulates the media which is reside telecasting, unmindful of the hurt it’s doing to the hostages.
Vamsi Patchipulusu’s cinematography is an asset, transferring from the cosy, heat portrayal of Sandeep’s formative years after which shifting to the motion mode. Sricharan Pakala’s music befits the breezy romance and household drama.
One can both mull over how a lot cinematic liberty and dramatisation was required to make this tribute or soak within the narrative that touches the precise emotional chords. What makes this tribute work can also be the performances throughout. Adivi Sesh is efficient in exhibiting younger Sandeep’s innocence and later because the soldier who tells his friends, ‘don’t come up, I’ll deal with them’. That is an internalised efficiency and his profession greatest. Anish Kuruvilla because the resort supervisor and Sobhita Dhulipala as businesswoman Pramoda Reddy are good of their transient, pivotal elements. Saiee Manjrekar is sweet as Isha. Murali Sharma is efficient as all the time. A phrase of reward for Prakash Raj and Revathy. Their feelings within the closing moments of the movie may transfer you to tears.
Main lives as much as its promise of paying a befitting tribute to Sandeep Unnikrishnan. Do be careful for the top credit to catch snapshots of Sandeep’s life.