Major movie review: Sashi Kiran Tikka and Adivi Sesh’s tribute to Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan is all heart

There are alternative ways to method a biopic of a soldier who was killed on a mission. One could be a medical method that delineates the soldier’s mettle, culminating in a nail-biting end that’s replete with minute particulars of the dangerous operation. The opposite could be by means 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 is just not excellent, however efficient sufficient to go away viewers moved and considering of troopers who stake all the pieces for the nation. And fortunately, there are not any jingoistic overtones.

Throughout pre-release interviews, Sashi talked about how Sandeep’s dad and mom recalled recollections of their son, in a non-chronological method, with the stronger recollections popping up first. Within the movie, Okay Unnikrishnan (Prakash Raj) remembers Sandeep’s (Adivi Sesh) recollections in the same, non-linear method. Everyone knows how Sandeep’s story would finish in the course of the 26/11 assaults. However Main is just not 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 accountability in the direction of his dad and mom, sister and partner. 

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 might have been written and depicted extra successfully. The Military coaching montages are picturised fantastically however don’t present Sandeep’s transformation. Did he fail, face setbacks and be taught from them? We don’t get sufficient of that studying curve. He’s earnest, decided and aces almost all the pieces.

However these are minor misgivings within the bigger image. As a plot system, narrating Sandeep’s story by means of his dad and mom Unnikrishnan and Dhanalakshmi helps to offer the emotional gravitas. There’s a fragile, delicate method through 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 fitting spot. 

A deeply transferring phase additionally entails Isha, and later Sandeep, telling one another at essential moments, ‘It’s higher you have no idea’. Abburi Ravi’s dialogues convey lots 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 must 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, aside from their rifles. There are a number of wow moments in the course of the operation, nearly 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 adolescence 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 fitting emotional chords. What makes this tribute work can be the performances throughout. Adivi Sesh is efficient in displaying 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 finest. Anish Kuruvilla because the resort supervisor and Sobhita Dhulipala as businesswoman Pramoda Reddy are good of their transient, pivotal components. Saiee Manjrekar is nice 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 tip credit to catch snapshots of Sandeep’s life.