It is raining political biopics these days – there was the Accidental Prime Minister; which according to critics was both a hatchet job on India's previous PM and a terrible movie. Then there was Thackeray which was more of a PR exercise by a party member; but an altogether better movie according to critics. We are now to have the first among several movies about the current prime minister. The trailer of PM Narendra Modi released recently; the reactions and memes started instantly.
It has everything we may expect – the little child selling tea, the boy inspired to become an ascetic, the fearless young man standing up to the oppressive regime of a villainous former PM, the upright RSS karyakarta and so on. Modi is played by Vivek Oberoi and the film releases on 5th April, 2019.
A lot of people tweeted their appreciation for the trailer. Not unsurprisingly, a lot of those had ‘chowkidar’ prefixing their twitter handle name. #PMNarendraModiTrailer was quickly trending and the trailer became the No 1 trending video on YouTube.
Some expressed the view that PM Narendra Modi is, in real life a better actor than Vivek Oberoi in reel life. Another pointed out that the movie helps solve the unemployment problem to a small extent since it managed to generate employment even for Oberoi.
This is young Bal Narendra we see in the picture, expressing his desire to take ‘sanyaas’ .
Some lines from the trailer were found to be very meme worthy; such as this one.
This line was so filmy that some just found it funny; others thought it had some resemblance to the most iconic Hindi movie ever.
It seems highly likely that former PM Indira Gandhi will be portrayed as an autocratic one-dimensional figure. The trailer's reference to this, indicates that the movie will likely tell the story of Modi disguising himself as a Sardar to avoid jail.
Inevitably, the tweeple including trenchant critic of the government, actor Siddharth made references to the attempts by the current dispensation to lay the blame of all India’s ills at the door of Pt. Nehru.
Some were reminded of the Bal Narendra comics – accounts of a brave and dutiful child who saves people from drowning and fights crocodiles – which were launched during the run up to the 2014 elections. Some thought that the comics were more realistic than the film is likely to be.
The film is a glowing tribute to the current PM and presents him and his actions in the most positive light possible. As such, it looks more like a piece of propaganda than a biopic or a commercial feature film.
Many commentators pointed out that the dates of the general elections are announced and the model code of conduct is binding upon all parties. In their view, such a movie should not be allowed to be released since it would influence voters and voting choices. It was also pointed out that the previous release date was brought forward by a week.
Some felt that the movie promises to be so bad that it would, in fact, be in the interests of the ruling party to stop the release of PM Narendra Modi on 5th April 2019.
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