Governor Movie Review:
Let’s talk about the art of the Hindi film disclaimer. It used to be the good-old “all events and characters shown in this film are fictional, any resemblance to any existing people, event or place is purely coincidental.” But when it comes to propaganda slop, this disclaimer can be practically anything. It can be “inspired” by real people”, “inspired” by true events and in the latest Governor, “a version of true events that merges many incidents in one timeline suitable to the film.” This gives the makers an opportunity to peddle anything. Merge everything in one timeline. We got independence, but in 2014.
Directed by: Chinmay D. Mandlekar
Starring: Manoj Bajpayee, Adah Sharma and Madhu Sharma
The film is set in 1990 as India is bracing for an impending economic crisis. Foreign reserves are depleting and there is a huge fiscal deficit. At this crucial time, IAS officer A. Ramanan (based on RBI Governor S. Venkitaramanan) is made the Governor of the “Rashtriya” Bank of India. The task at hand is to steer the country off the crisis which Ramanan does with his unassuming personality and clever thinking. He manages to get loans from European countries by giving a forgettable speech at a forgettable conference. He flies India’s gold out of the country and the only conflict he faces is a traffic argument.
This film uses a story as an excuse to peddle a narrative. You will hear dialogues about the country being the “fourth largest economy” and how previous governments did us bad. Governor is a film about a past triumph and wishes to dictate the present. Constantly the film wants to convey doublethink ideas like we were worse off before but also good days are just around the corner.
When it is being a movie, Governor feels like an unengaging history lesson. There isn’t much drama and the emotions are sappy. The film’s language and visuals seem to be borrowed from government ads. Its narrative is a drag and its solutions overly simplistic. Manoj Bajpayee’s performance as Ramanan is serviceable and offers no surprises. Adah Sharma plays a nosy reporter but doesn’t leave much of a mark.
Governor might not be that loud and vile but it is a seemingly intellectual propaganda piece. This has become a new toolkit for biased filmmakers who cherry pick historical nuggets. A certain Mr. Singh is shown but his contributions in tackling the 1991 crisis are avoided. A certain Mr. Gandhi is talked about but he is never shown because he is “too busy running the country.” There wasn’t much of a need for a two-hour film, a disclaimer would have been enough: “All your problems are fictional. Any resemblance to any reality is purely coincidental.”
