The official trailer of Mission Mangal, about the journey behind ISRO’s Mangalyaan, has just been released.
Mission Mangal is the incredible, true story of a scientist, Rakesh Dhawan (Akshay Kumar) and Tara Shinde (Vidya Balan), who lead a motley team of scientists who overcome their personal challenges and failures to serve as the brains behind one of the greatest mission in history: Mangalyaan, for the launch of India’s first space probe/ satellite in planet Mars’ orbit, by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in November 2013. The teaser of the film was released on 9 July 2019.
The official trailer reveals a little bit more about each character involved in the work that went behind the launch mission, portrayed by an interesting set of performers including Sonakshi Sinha, Taapsee Pannu, Kirti Kulhari and Nithya Menen, along with Sharman Joshi and Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub. But mostly it shows Akshay Kumar in his signature character sketch as a thought leader, initiator and proud Indian. Watch it here.
Produced by Cape of Good Films, Fox Star Studios and Hope Productions, the film has been directed by Jagan Shakti. Shakti has a prolific history in filmmaking, starting off as an Assistant Director for Cheeni Kum, Paa and English Vinglish. His most recent outing was with Akshay Kumar as Associate Director for Pad Man, which has probably led to this collaboration.
The film looks sufficiently Bollywood-ised, with its dialogues, dancing scientists, and Akshay Kumar making a stuntlike slide across a table in his fit avatar, but if that works to bring this story of achieving big while appreciating the knowledge that is localised, inexpensive, rich in heritage, and Indian, leading to inspiring generations to dream big and achieve the impossible, it is worth it.
Mission Mangal is set to release on 15th August 2019. Chandrayaan 2 should go to orbit before that. Add it to your watchlist.