Mishan Impossible Movie Review: This semi-comedy makes for a decent timepass watch

Mishan Impossible Movie Review: This semi-comedy makes for a decent timepass watch 

 Title: Mishan Impossible

Cast: Taapsee Pannu and others

Director: Swaroop RSJ

Run-Time: 129 minutes

Rating: 2.5/5

'Mishan Impossible' and 'Agent Sai Srinivas Athreya' (2018) have been made by the same filmmaker: Swaroop RSJ. You find cute similarities between the two. Naveen Polishetty's Athreya was an underdog, made bumbling presumptions, showed signs of having a fondness for parodying, took on the might of forces much bigger than him, went beyond the pale of limited imagination in bringing down a mafia. If you have watched 'Mishan Impossible', which was released in theatres today, you might have noticed similar themes in it. 

Raghupathi, Raghava and Rajaram are village-bred boys who are dull at studies. Their extra-curricular activities include unreasonably loving Ram Gopal Varma, clumsily playing gully cricket, and consistently getting basic General Knowledge questions wrong. The likely bunch joins forces with an investigative journalist Sailaja (Taapsee Pannu) in an unlikely turn of events. Their improbable mission involves scaring the daylights out of a notorious cartel. 

The film's biggest charm lies in wedding two fanciful threads within the realm of a comedy-thriller. R, R, and R (as the kids proudly call themselves in an overt reference to SS Rajamouli's latest release) want to strike rich by finding the whereabouts of Dawood Ibrahim, a plot point admittedly inspired by an actual occurrence many years ago. On the other hand, Taapsee's character has collaborated with a middle-aged man (played by Ravindra Vijay, who fails to make us emotionally invested in his trauma) for a clandestine yet well-meaning mission. 

After a point, we stop buying into the journey of the kids and their fairy tale 'Mishan'. One of the reasons is that their challenges don't look like challenges. They look like excuses for a couple of build-up lines and slow-motion shots. The screenplay wants the audience to see the three audacious kids outgrowing their ineptness thanks to their idiosyncrasies, not just despite them. This is a tricky arena and therefore, the writing should have been more fleshed out. 

What separates a mindless comedy from a semi-serious thriller like 'Mishan Impossible' is this: In the former, the bad guys can be shown to be incurably foolish, but in the latter, the villains are fully aware of what they are up to. The film under review somehow doesn't manage to make the plot turns involving the antagonists and the protagonists look credible and irresistible. 

The child protagonists speak too cinematically and like adults even in the most trying circumstances. This would have been a forgivable flaw had the writing been gripping.

             

The children other than the three child protagonists are reduced to props. A heart-tugging scene involving one of the protagonists and the faceless victims of child trafficking would have made some difference. Perhaps, the film needed a post-end credits song where the three kids indulge in self-congratulatory moves with gay abandon. 

For all its minuses, 'Mishan Impossible' makes for a time pass watch. Adorable performances (by the three kids Harsh Roshan, Bhannu Prakshan, and Jayateertha Molugu), Mark K Robin's stylized background score, and Deepak Yeragara's able cinematography are its stand-out features.