It’s about the money, honey. This small-budget film creates a David-Goliath situation for itself by taking on the theme of the worst budget crisis faced by the Indian economy. Luckily, the country is saved from bankruptcy. So is the film, if you must know. And it’s not only Manoj Bajpayee’s performance that saves the day.
In ‘Governor’, director Chinmay D Mandlekar takes us back confidently to 1991 when India faced the worst possible economic crisis. The country was on the verge of bankruptcy. This is where S Venkitaramanan was brought in as Governor of the Reserve Bank of India.
This is where Manoj Bajpayee, his hair duly dyed at the edges to give the character some wisdom props, comes into the picture. He projects all the economic uncertainties of the era with a stalwart’s surety, not allowing his character’s all-consuming trepidations to brim over from his eyes.
Some may have a problem with his Malayali accent. But that’s not Bajpayee’s problem. He has much bigger problems to tackle, and he looks like he is up to the task.
Giving Bajpayee’s Ramanan (real name Sri Venkitaramanan, why change the name?) kindred company on screen is Noushad Mohamed Kunju, an actor whom we haven’t seen enough of, but should. Kunju knocks the socks off Bajpayee’s author-backed presence as the disbelieving Deputy Governor C Rangarajan, who comes around to finally root for his senior.
The screenplay largely scales down the complexities of the economic crisis that brought the nation to the brink, and that’s a positive thing. I found the direction free of affectation and willing to be cinematic when needed.
There is this lengthy sequence towards the end when the gold being carried secretly out of the country is stalled by road rage. The sequence is surreptitiously scaled to simulate suspense without compromising on quality. The absence of sentimentality at the workplace is amply compensated by two characters, played by Jaywant Wadkar and Madhoo. Playing the peon and the wife, these two actors bring much-needed warmth to what could have been a cold, clinical exploration of a political crisis.
‘Governor’ is gutsy and candid, and never overstated in its factual identity. Ironically, what it lacks is a budget. The periodicity is perfunctory. Prudently, the 1990s is never created through songs of the era. The vintage vehicles are just about the only indication of the period being re-visited by a film that dares to revisit a national crisis all of us have forgotten.
