Mission Majnu is an average spy thriller that has way too many melodramatic scenes but somehow still manages to keep you hooked with the little espionage it has!

Mission Majnu starring Sidharth Malhotra and Rashmika Mandanna doesn’t really have much excitement to offer as a patriotic film, nor does it add to our knowledge of how the world of spies really operates!

Mission Majnu is set against the backdrop of Rawalpindi, Pakistan at a time where it was desperate to start its own secret nuclear bomb facility after Buddha smiled in Pokhran in 1974. Here’s when India relied on one of its best spies, Tariq aka Amandeep (Sidharth Malhotra) to slyly dig out information about what our neighboring country was upto. 

The life of a spy is one I feel most gut-wrenched for. They are the unsung heroes who silently protect our country with no reward or fame waiting for them back home. Most of them don’t even know if they’ll ever make it back home in the first place. Or worse, if they ever got caught, no one is going to be there to take responsibility for them so they pretty much stand nowhere. Either way, for their loyalty towards their country, they go into the heart of the enemy to bring out the most unexpected information and save lives, leaving the enemies wondering how the hell they found out such information!

Tariq too had a similar feeling in his heart while executing his mission. He blended in well with the Pakistanis. While their lingo is not that different from ours, he still adapted to their daily vocab. Although, most of his relations there were farce, the one that really struck a cord for him was his love for Nasreen (Rashmika Mandanna), a blind girl he went head over heels for. He took a job as a tailor at her uncle’s shop and the two soon fell deeply in love and got married as well which served as a very good alibi given that he’s a spy.

Also Read: While Sidharth Malhotra’s performance gained some eyeballs in Mission Majnu, most of the Janta wasn’t that happy with the lack of research in some scenes!

Even though he always exudes main character energy and looks way too much like a hero to pull off going unnoticed as a spy, Sidharth still does a good job at portraying how smartly Tariq cultivates his network in Pakistan with his witty conversations and charm that often plays in his favor. The twists in how he seeks out information are the only scenes that will keep you interested and on the edge of your seat. Having said that, many scenes, especially the ones that talk about his past or his undying love for his country also often come out as overly dramatic. His chemistry with Rashmika Mandanna is as good as nil because she often looked like she had no expression on her face at all or was just trying too hard to act. 

Tariq’s colleagues from their little spy team played by Kumud Mishra and Sharib Hashmi made this film a lot more watchable since the camaraderie between the three was quite interesting. Meanwhile, Zakir Hussain who plays the officer Tariq reports to in India comes across as a caricature. And Ashwath Bhatt who plays Zia Ul Haqq looks rather intimidating and tough which is much required for his character. 

Director Shantanu Bagchi’s film works in some parts and in some it really doesn’t. For example, some parts of the movie feel like an old Bollywood movie where there are loud twists at every turn, tears in every second scene that you come across but what worked for me is how he did not hide from showing the truth about certain events like Morarji Desai’s phone call to Zia Ul Haqq after he found out about the nuclear plant. The movie is a mixture of fiction and real events and trust me you’ll know exactly what was fictional and what was real even if you’re not well versed with history. 

Overall, Mission Majnu is not the best spy movie out there but does its job of being a one time family entertainer on a weekend. 

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