The Vaccine War Movie Review: What sets a documentary apart from a cinematic experience? Drama? Heightened entertainment value? Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri’s latest film, The Vaccine War kind of straddles both worlds. Much like Vivek’s last two films The Tashkent Files and The Kashmir Files, this movie too is informative. Agenda or not, propaganda or not, a whole lot of research has gone into making The Vaccine War that enlightens you as an audience. It’s the vanilla treatment of the film that doesn’t quite help the written word come alive onscreen.
Based on the book Going Viral: Making of Covaxin by Bhargava Balram, the film revolves around a bunch of scientists from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and National Institute of Virology (NIV) as they face numerous challenges while developing an indigenous and affordable Covid-19 vaccine. What’s interesting is that while the men are afraid of putting their lives at risk, it’s the female scientists who stand up in the face of adversity and give their heart and soul to creating a vaccine to save mankind.
Heading this team is Dr Bhargav, an eccentric and unpredictable scientist and hard taskmaster, who holds no qualms about snatching away the personal lives of his women subordinates. What they are also racing against apart from a ticking clock is Rohini Singh Dhulia, the editor of a science magazine. She can go to any length to prove that Dr Bhargav’s team consisting of Priya Abraham, Nivedita Gupta and Pragya Yadav is incompetent.
Despite its important messaging, The Vaccine War lacks the nuance and hard-hitting quotient of Agnihotri’s previous films, The Taskent Files and The Kashmir Files. It’s a simple plot without any risky arcs and unpredictable storytelling. We understand that it’s no thriller and is a commentary on professionals who left no stone unturned to save multiple lives during the health crisis and put India’s medical progress on the global map but it lacks a certain cinematic spark. The narrative doesn’t carry enough weight to keep you hooked throughout its 2 hours 41 minutes runtime. But mind you, the pace isn’t really the problem here, the cramming of too many incidents is. The problem isn’t so much with what it’s trying to say but how it’s told thus giving it a very bland finish.
The screenplay by Agnihotri is extremely verbose and considering it circumnavigates around a team of scientists, the dialogues are heavy with scientific jargon, which make a few situations indecipherable. But the director deserves praise for lacing some of the gravest episodes in the film with humour that never borders on frivolity but instead renders Dr Bhargav’s character an interesting edge.
Agnihotra also deserves credit for turning a momentous story that shaped our country’s modern history into a big screen experience within a couple of years considering most films based on true events take years to come alive onscreen. Despite its flaws, the film has spurts of some nice moments that stay back with you and make you sit up and revisit the struggle that the medical fraternity went through to save lives affected by the coronavirus. And despite a stretched-out runtime, Agnohitri makes sure that he wastes no time in setting the tone of the story and quickly dives into its crux right since its first frame.
Nana Patekar returns to the big screen after a break and gives his best to play Dr Bhargav. He almost becomes the character and a few minutes into the story, you can’t really distinguish the actor from the character he’s playing. His impeccable comic timing and straight faced humour is like a cherry on the cake. Pallavi Joshi plays Priya Abraham quite earnestly. Underneath her tough exterior, you will get to see her going through bouts of vulnerabilities and that’s truly impressive.
Girija Oak and Nivedita Bhattacharya do a great job too. Raima Sen plays an interesting part and it’s good to see her return to Bollywood after a while. Her potential largely remains untapped and the Hindi movie watching audience deserves to see more of her (watch her Bengali films and you will understand). Anupam Kher plays a cabinet minister and he doesn’t have a long screen time or a substantial role. Sapthami Gowa doesn’t have much to do either and that feels unfair considering her impressive act in Kantara.
The Vaccine War largely belongs to its women who much like most of us, are simultaneously and successfully dabbing their personal and professional lives. It’s refreshing to see a male director giving so much scope to his women characters to breathe, speak their mind, challenge the status, emerge victorious and create history for their country.
