Parmanu The Story of Pokhran- Film Review

John’s  Parmanu -The Story of Pokhran goes about recreating those glorious moments etched in the Golden History of India defining India’s journey to becoming a nuclear power and celebrating the extraordinary efforts and feats  of  the true heroes of our nuclear program- our army and our scientists. With this film John will establish his credentials in attempting and being able to execute some meaningful and wonderful cinema without getting stuck with the mainstream formula affair.

Not an easy subject to tackle Director Abhishek Sharma with John’s commitment to good cinema and the commendable efforts on the part of the supporting cast has been able to sail through the whole journey of our Operation Shakti- India’s nuclear test explosions in Pokhran in May 1998.

PARMANU – THE STORY OF POKHRAN is the story of those people who secretly carried out a series of nuclear bomb test explosions in Pokhran on May 11, 1998. Ashwath Rana (John Abraham) is from the research department of the Central Government and in 1995, he advises the Prime Minister’s Office to conduct nuclear bomb tests which does not take off firstly as per his planning but instead he is made a target of ridicule for no fault of his. But second time on In 1998, when Atal Bihari Vajpayee is made the Prime Minister, His principle secretary Himanshu Sharma (Boman Irani) summons Ashwath and asks him to help with the nuclear tests. Ashwath agrees and works out a plan to mastermind and implement the tests under the eye of USA’s surveillance but with strategic time outs. He also prepares a team comprising of Ambalika ( Diana Penty ), Dr. Viraf Wadia (Aditya Hitkari), Dr. Naresh Sinha (Yogendra Tikku), Major Prem Singh (Vikas Kumar). Everyone has put in their best performances to make it a live experience to witness those sensational edge of the seat moments beautifully mastered and pictured.

John as an actor puts in one of his best performance without unnecessarily over dramatising the situations and getting on with job on hand with clinical perfection. It is not an easy task to undertake such a difficult subject as a producer when as an actor he could have saved himself the troubles and tensions of productions in such hard climactic conditions of Pokhran. Being a Star in his own right John has demonstrated and used his Star power to bring across one of the important chapters of the Indian History on celluloid. A very important step in the direction of meaningful cinema when today cinema has large overall impact. John has delivered a Master Stroke in Parmanu and has set precedent for some great cinema to follow in coming days.

Boman is always a treat to watch essaying the typical bureaucrat with ease and comfort. Diana Penty looks pretty cool playing her part with elan.

Pakistani spy (Darshan Pandya) and CIA agent Daniel (Mark Bennington) ploy to stop Ashwath’s mission adds to the suspense and creates an element of conflict thereby making the narrative more engaging and inclusive.