Starring: Vikrant Massey, Medha Shankr, Anant Joshi, Anshuman Pushkar, Geeta Agrawal Sharma, Harish Khanna, Saroj Joshi
Director: Vidhu Vinod Chopra
Inspired from a real-life story, this moving depiction of one man’s grit and determination is now on a number of streaming platforms including Netflix.
Manoj Kumar Sharma (Massey) hails from Chambal, a region of central India infamous for its association with bandits and a murky underworld. An encounter with an honest police officer and inspired by his throwaway remark about honesty being the best policy in life, Manoj sets off on the seemingly impossible mission to clear his civil service exams to become a police officer following in the footsteps of his idol.
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His grandmother hands over her life’s savings to Manoj to pursue his dream in Delhi and thus begins his excruciating journey towards his ambition. The road to fulfilling his dream is by no means a smooth one, getting robbed and defrauded along the way and having to work insane hours to not only make ends meet but also send some funds back to his family. However, with a little help from strangers-turned friends like Pritam Pandey (Anant Joshi) and buoyed by his bond with the principled Shraddha Joshi (Shankr), Manoj sets off on a retake after retake journey as he continues to fail the exams in a system unfairly stacked against the poor.
Will Manoj Kumar’s hard work and determination finally pay off or will he get crushed by a skewed and outdated exam system?
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Under the adept direction of Vidhu Vinod Chopra, this semi-factual tale becomes quite the thriller as the audience feels every knock-back that Manoj suffers along the way. In Massey, Chopra has found the ideal protagonist who can convey the sheer force of disappointment and dejection after each failed exam attempt often with very simple gestures.
The length of time the film takes in driving home the message may test the patience of some, but it is nothing compared to the real-life journey of Manoj Kumar Sharma, making it a truly inspirational story of hard work ultimately paying off – come what may.
