Rocketry, The Trailer Tiggers Off A Chain Of Deep Thoughts

The story  of  rocket scientist Nambi Narayanan’s rise to being India’s  biggest   scientist hero and the following fall of grace, had to be  told. I  am glad the very versatile, very Tamil  R. Madhavan is  doing it. Here’s why: Maddy has the intellectual bandwidth to get  it right without over-intellectualizing  the  role,  as Kamal  Haasan would have,  or  playing to  the  galleries, as Rajinikanth  would have.

 Madhavan is pitch-perfect as Nambi Narayanan, the Rocket Man who took  India kicking and dragging into the space age  only to be branded a  traiter.  As the trailer aptly sums it up, sometimes  the  shaming of  an individual is  the shaming  of the nation. At a time when branding  individuals  as  anti-national has become a way  of  life, Rocketry comes as a timely warning: don’t mess with a genius.

  The trailer  has terrific tempo.And a will to  look at  the  hero with all  his blemishes  without  blushing  or flinching.  We get sucked into  Narayanan’s dedication,  passion and  discipline and  thereafter his  shocking torture and  humiliation hits you  in your face. We can see Madhavan has  given all  of  himself  to the  part, and more.

 There are  no concessions to filmy trappings  in the trailer. No songs. No oomph.  No girls in bikinis. Only big boy playing big games that would change the way India is perceived by the world.

The man  who had the gumption to bill India’s rocketry as “puppetry” is  no  ordinary  scientist. He  is  destined to change the world. It is   only befitting that  a film as  epic in vision as  this  should be made on his life.

Knowing  the  Covid situation  and  the  way it is going, we  don’t   know how Rocketry The  Nambi Effect  will  make  it into theatres. I spoke to Madhavan  after  the trailer  started trending crazily  on Wednesday . He  is down with Covid. But he is  determined. “I don’t care how long I’ve to wait. But  I am going to  release my film only  in the theatres,” Maddy told me.

 Now that’s the spirit the real Rocketman would  approve of.