Bharat Bhhagya Viddhaata Movie Review:

In a nation obsessed with film stars and cricketers, it is a sad reality that we need a film to lionise the nursing community so heavily for them to be recognised for their selfless service. Writer-director Manoj Tapadia's Bharat Bhhagya Viddhaata goes all out to highlight the societal importance of these angels in all whites, but the execution falters. The result is a preachy, artificial film with very little emotional connection and bereft of tension. The film is based on the real events at Cama Hospital where nurses and other staff stood firm against a terrorist attack and saved numerous lives on November 26, 2008—a date that is etched in the dark chapters of Indian history.

Bharat Bhhagya Viddhaata begins by establishing the daily rhythm and grind at the hospital, showing the camaraderie among nurses, other staff, and patients. When Kangana Ranaut's character goes around showering her patients with much tender loving care and engages in friendly banter with her colleagues, you wonder how many nurses at government hospitals actually get to do this. Maybe there are nurses who can show such affection, but most of them cannot because government hospitals in India are notorious for being understaffed. In any case, these early stretches in the film have the kind of artificiality you expect from a theatre production. It is evident what Manoj is trying to do here, and we know that things will soon get ugly for all of them. The director wants to warm the audience up to the contrasting stakes in the story while manipulating their emotions along the way with an overly cinematic narrative. We are almost at the halfway mark when the terrorists walk into the building and catch the innocuous hospital staff off guard. They do everything they can to barricade the wards, but the armed criminals still find a way through. It appears authentic when the staffers mistake the sound of gunfire outside for firecrackers celebrating a cricket win and express complete optimism even as things look bleak. After all, nobody expects terrorists to attack a place full of patients. To give credit where it is due, Manoj smartly uses the terrorists as mere plot devices and does not try to humanise them in any way. They are killing machines without an iota of humanity.

However, these grounded moments are few and far between. Soon, the film reverts to sermonising the audience on the sheer bravado and sacrifice of the hospital staffers. There are even moments where the nurses recite their professional declaration that underscores their duty of care and commitment even as the terrorists close in on their targets and tension runs high at the hospital. Isn't their selflessness a given?

Oddly enough, the film does not limit the preaching only to its heroines. Each time someone puts their life at stake to save others, the film emphasises it with clunky, on-the-nose running commentary from surrounding characters. It also does not help that the treatment of the hostage portions is conventional, with loud background music and familiar beats of a standard survival thriller. Perhaps the idea of the survival thriller format is not appropriate for this material. The film could have played out better as a procedural, especially because the events that form the basis for it are real and known facts. 

In an attempt to appease the masses, the film also uses oddly placed humour that dangerously borders on trivialising the facts. Add to this the cloying sentimentality, where the makers try to tug at our heartstrings, and Bharat Bhhagya Viddhaata becomes an exhausting watch. It is only the stellar cast, led by Kangana Ranaut, that redeems the film to an extent. Even when the screenplay pushes her character into over-the-top heroism, Kangana grounds it in a reality that is relatable. The actor infuses her character with a sense of vulnerability, bravado, and optimism that gives the film a much-needed emotional anchor. Girija Oak, too, is quite effective in the quieter portions of the film where her character sits in solitude and tries to make sense of the grim events that unfold in front of her. 

Occasionally, Bharat Bhhagya Viddhaata shows glimpses of the gritty and powerful film that it could have become if it focused more on the internal battles of its protagonists. Beneath the facade of bravery that the nurses put on at the need of the hour lies a raw, paralysing fear for survival. Kangana’s breakdown at a pivotal juncture is genuinely shattering, offering a rare moment of human truth in a film that otherwise settles for cheap, gruesome shock value. Bharat Bhhagya Viddhaata is noble in its attempt to bring the disturbing events of 26/11 vividly on to the big screen, but in its quest for appeasing its target audience, the film settles for far less.