In the year 2005 late actor- director Dev Anand presented a film ‘Mr. Prime Minister’, which exposed `the changing political scenario in India, to show how money plays an important role to attain majority in parliament and to choose the candidate for Prime Minister’s post. Now, after 14 years, we find a film with the title ‘The Accidental Prime Minister’, which shows the power of media to enable a prime minister to face all the crisis and stay in power with the support of people.
This Indian biographical film directed by Vijay Ratnakar Gutte ( who had earlier produced films like ‘The Emotional Attyachar’ , ‘Time Bara Vait’ and ‘Badmashiyaan’ ) and written by Mayank Tewari, is actually based on the 2014 book of the same name written by Sanjaya Baru the former editor of the Financial Express, who later joined as the media adviser of prime minister Dr. Minister Manmohan Singh, during his first term of UPA rule .
In this film we find Anupam Kher playing the lead role of Dr. Manmohan Singh, while Akshaye Khanna playing an equally important role of his media adviser Sanjaya Baru. The film highlights the power of media, as we see the top media person playing PM’s media adviser. The other important role of Ms. Sonia Gandhi, the former president of Indian National Congress is played by Suzanne Bernert a German actress, who has earlier worked in few Hindi and Marathi films during the past few years. Another important role of Ahmed Patel is played by Vipin Sharma.
‘The Accidental Prime Minister’ shows the important happenings during Dr. Manmohan Singh’s term , which is writer’s account of what happened behind the scenes, like Dr. Singh’s troubled relations with his ministers, his cautious equation with Sonia Gandhi and how he handled the big crisis from managing the Left to pushing through the nuclear deal. In the film’s screenplay , though we find the name of Rahul Gandhi repeatedly taken, his character played by Arjun Mathur has very limited scope on screen, compared to what Vipin Sharma has found in the role of Ahmed Patel. But, there are some clippings of their actual speeches inserted into the screenplay.
The film besides presenting the Indian political situation during the period 2004 to 2014, offers a wonderful portrait of Dr. Manmohan Singh and the credit goes to versatile actor Anupam Kher who has portrayed his role with perfection. Watch his body language and his voice for which he gets full marks. Akshaye Khanna has also played his character with total conviction and so is the fine effort by Suzanne Bernert in the character of Sonia Gandhi. There are many other known artistes playing the characters of different politicians and one of them is popular Marathi stage, tv and film actor Ramesh Bhatkar who plays the role of Prithviraj Chavan.
Music by Sudip Roy & Sadhu Tiwari is apt for this type of film and so is the brilliant cinematography by Sachin Krishn . But, above all the perfect casting, wonderful performances by all lead artistes and superb make up by Mangesh Desai and Shrikant Desai makes this film a worth watch.
Rating ( ***1/2)