ORDINARY FILM ABOUT AN EXTRAORDINARY FEAT

anatomy designer Neha Siddiqui (Kirti Kulhari) is fighting social ostracism owing to her minority status. Navigation expert Krittika Agarwal (Taapsee Pannu) must, as a devoted wife, tend to her army-man husband when he is injured in the line of duty. Varsha Pillai (Nithya Menen), satellite designer, battles her mother-inlaw's taunts for being barren. Tara herself has her days full, balancing career, home, husband and two teenage kids.

These sub-stories distract from what the film was essentially supposed to be - a gripping drama of an overwhelming achievement. ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) was accomplished in record time, using minimal funds and skeletal infrastructure. It had to be realised in one attempt, as the reluctant space organisation was not too keen to shell out any more funds for the project. The gravity of such an achievement never really comes across.

almost apologetic to do so – the protagonist doles out a lecture on how the impressionable youth who get sucked into terrorism are not to be blamed, that the fault lies with the harbingers of religion who abuse faith to brainwash them.

It takes a while for the film to reach that sort of an indecisive stage, after the advantage of an impressive start is squandered away over the larger part of its nearly two-and-half hour runtime. Director Nikkhil Advani has credibly handled the genre of gritty thriller based on real-life terror in his 2013 release, D-Day. With Batla House he somehow struggles to maintain an urgency in the drama that unfolds.

To their credit, the writers have managed to keep the narrative lucid despite the fact that they were dealing with a heavily technical narrative.

Akshay Kumar, for a change, is only a catalyst here. Despite enjoying maximum footage, he actually lets the female protagonists push the plot. In fact, tellingly, when he is tipsy after a pub-hopping spree, a gang of girls protects him from ruffians.

Mission Mangal is a feel-good toast to girl power, and this is an advantage for its female cast. Vidya Balan, Sonakshi Sinha, Taapsee Pannu, Kirti Kulhari and Nithya Menen get wellcrafted roles that fit seamlessly to give the film its multi-starrer entirety.

Nonetheless, the film becomes mediocre somewhere down its runtime, an ordinary film about an extraordinary feat.

Vinayak Chakravorty

before Sanjay reached the spot.

John carries off the quasi-fictional creation Sanjay Kumar with admirable restraint, in what has to be a careerdefining role. As flawed screenwriting leads to uneven storytelling, the actor exudes tremendous screen presence to keep you engaged.

too, is hesitant when it comes to bluntly stating facts. When it does take a stand in the end, the film seems

John Abraham cuts a picture of gravitas as the film's hero Sanjay Kumar, the top cop in the line of fire after the encounter-op, because he headed it. The film would have us believe ACP Sanjay Kumar, who was in charge, did not give the go-ahead for the operation – that his immediate subordinate, Kishen Kumar Sharma (Ravi Kishen), took it upon himself to lead the cops into the building even

Batla House names Indian Mujahideen as the masterminds of the serial blasts but refuses to probe deeper. Sanjay's entire operation is overwhelmed by the demands of fiction, which affects its search for truth. While scenes of the hero's topsyturvy marriage hinders pace in the first half, Nora Fatehi's item number seems wholly out of place in what should have been an edge-of-the-seat second half.

John Abraham's act apart, there is not much to talk about among the cast.

Mrunal Thakur, seen recently in the Hrithik Roshan-starrer Super 30, suffers from a badly-penned role. Even a proven talent as Rajesh Sharma (as the defence lawyer) slips into the tendency to ham.

This could have been a terrific film. It remains a tepid effort.

Vinayak Chakravorty