Star Cast-Sharman Joshi, Stephen Baldwin, Shari Rigby, Manoj Mishra ,Prakash Belawadi, Aditi Chengappa and Aneesh Daniel
Genre- Social
Sincere and Laudable!
Rating-***
Jyothi Venkatesh
Through the eyes of a photo journalist Manav Banerjee (Sharman Joshi), the filmrevisits the series of events leading up to the tragic killing of Australian missionary Graham Staines. The film makes you feel for the Australian missionary Graham Staines who was burnt alive in his station wagon, along with his two sons aged 10 and 6 and in a flashback mode sets out to recount and analyze chronologically the deeply provocative issue of ‘religious conversion’ and unravels a brutal and barbaric hate crime that followed, which forms the basis of the poignant story of this social drama.
The Hollywood production, helmed by debutant director Aneesh Daniel, sets out to unravel the story of the Australian Missionary Staines (Stephen Baldwin) through the eyes of Manav Banerjee. Manav and his heavily pregnant wife Shanti (Aditi Chengappa) arrive in Baripada, a sleepy town in Orissa, one evening. Manav, who is very desperate for a job, with just two five hundred rupee notes in his pocket grabs the first chance he gets to secure a position at the local newspaper, New Orissa. The shrewd editor, Kedar Mishra (Prakash Belawadi), on the hunt for an expose on Staines, who he believes is attempting to convert unsuspecting poor tribal locals, assigns Manav the tough task to bring him the evidence.
The biggest minus point of the film is that Manav seems more like a photographer than an investigative journalist and though he is instructed to convert himself to Christianity and masquerade as a Catholic as the undercover operation demands him to, but sets out to observe Staines from the sidelines trying to make sense of his motives and getting lectured including one on expendability.The screenplay leaves a lot to be desired because in the first place , it is not explained why on earth has Manav bothered to bring along his pregnant wife Shanti with him when she is in advanced stage of pregnancy. Yet another minus point of the film is that though it has been set in 1999, it becomes a tad regressive when the midwife comes and tells Manav that she is sorry to inform him that his wife had delivered a baby girl and not a boy.
Sharman Joshi is good in parts as Manav but behaves like an unruly guy when he starts fighting with Sunder a priest who is tending to the leprosy patients since his editor has warned him that the priests in Orissa are resorting to forcibly converting all the low caste guys to Catholics by using the veil of conversion. Not only does Manav not embrace Christianity, but also avoids proximity to the leprosy patients, though the Missionary tells him that they are not suffering from a contagious disease. Aneesh also does a cameo role as the estate broker who fetches Manav his house. Bhaskar Shewalkar as the village activist also scores with his role.
While Aditi Chengappa has been wasted and does not have even one scene to herself, Prakash Belawadi impresses with his role as the Editor with negative shades, whose only mission is to please his publishers and come up with a story framing the poor priest for converting most of the villagers into Christians. It is also difficult to digest why he shuns his leper father though he is a rich Editor. Also it is absurd to see rival newspapers buying Manav’s story and coming up with headlines denouncing his local paper by tarnishing its name boldly. The lopsided screenplay, penned by Andrew E Matthews and Daniel leaves a gap between Manav’s actions and intent but on the whole, Graham Staines is a sincere effort, which needs to be lauded. The film will stream on the OTT ShemarooMe Box Office from August 28.
