The Vaccine War review: Not Covid but media is the biggest villain in Vivek Agnihotri's film

If one indulges in a drinking game every time the characters of Vivek Agnihotri's film The Vaccine War utter the word atma nirbhar (self-reliant),one would be happy high by the end of the 160-minute-long film. The Vaccine War, Agnihotri's film, is about the set of events and lockdowns that led to India creating its own COVID-19 vaccine in record time,but ultimately becomes yet another platform through which the filmmaker reiterates his political beliefs. The Vaccine War, therefore, ends up becoming a bizarre advertisement for the government of India.

There is no harm in being that nor is there a harm in showing how a bunch of scientists in India worked tirelessly to create India's vaccine at a time when practically every country was racing to create its own vaccine and sell it worldwide. The story of India's medical officers and scientists working relentlessly to find the country's indigenous Covaxin vaccine is truly inspirational. It needs to be talked about and celebrated. But Agnihotri ever so often slips a jargon or a propaganda or two about the government, its achievements, and its ideology in the narrative. When it isn't showcasing the current government's great achievements, the film is bashing those who dare to question the system.

In fact, in The Vaccine War, the media is the biggest villain. The press and especially the ones who dare to question the government pose a greater threat in Agnihotri's India than a mutating virus. One can treat a virus it seems, but what to do with those who may want to question or pose a doubt about the system? They are the biggest problem for Agnihotri and his characters.

What is The Vaccine War about?

Based on the 2021 memoir of former Indian Council of Medical Research Director-General Balram Bhargava, Going Viral: Making of Covaxin, The Vaccine War is headlined by Nana Patekar who returns to the screen after a long hiatus. Patekar plays Bhargava, the eccentric, workaholic, non-expressive chief who is motivated and leads a pack of scientists who take up the daunting task of creating a vaccine as India and the world are crippled by Coronavirus in 2020.

Bhargava's army consists mostly of talented women, including virologists Priya Abraham (Pallavi Joshi), Nivedita Gupta (Girija Oak) and Dr Pragya Yadav (Nivedita Bhattacharya). The women are shown not only being able leaders at work, taking up more work and stretching beyond office hours but also as mothers and homemakers trying to balance their two worlds.

The first half of the film is a dramatization of the actual incidents of how the team sets out to first identify and understand the virus and then eventually triesto find a vaccine that can work in India's favour. The main villain of the story is a science journalist called Rohini Singh Dhulia (Raima Sen) who seems to be motivated by foreign pharma companies to lead a smear campaign against the government, its scientists, and their noble efforts. Sen's character is supposedly fictional but one can easily see that she is after all an amalgamation of certain journalists who have time and again questioned the government and its actions.

Agenda-driven second half

In The Vaccine War, Rohini seems to have a single-point agenda. To malign and undermine India's effort to be self-reliant or atma nirbhar, a word that keeps appearing more in Agnihotri's narrative than the vaccine itself. And while Rohini and the likes of her are shown criticising openly, the scientists, or soldiers as Bhargava likes to call them, wage a war against the virus to create the Covaxin vaccine for India.

I found myself feeling exasperated at certain moments in the first half but post-interval almost gave up on the story because by then it was not about the vaccine anymore. Sure the scientists are shown to find the cure, get first rejected by WHO and eventually find approvalbut all these things take a backseat because they seem to have a bigger problem to handle - bad press. The team of scientists isthen shown to get involved in long discussions about how they need to speak to the public to clear out fake news that is being pelted by the media even as Bhargava keeps insisting on not talking to the press at all and just concentrating on work.

The second half also attempts to arm-twist emotion out of the viewer with over-dramatization of familial issues of the scientist at home. There is a shot of the Director-General overlooking a cremation ground from his terrace which can be triggering to many.

The biggest eyesore is the climax where the protagonist starts rattling off numbers to prove India's achievements in the vaccine race and also casually slips in the government's theory of how the oxygen crisis during the second wave of the pandemic was a gimmick and how the Delhi government hoarded cylinders to create a crisis. Don't know why was there a need to talk about the oxygen crisis in the middle of a scientific press briefing. The climax also shows the hero - Bhargava - taking on the villain - Rohini and the press - over facts calling her out on fake articles and orchestrating a hate campaign on social media.

The cast consists of Joshi, Bhattacharya, and Patekar who are credible. Pallavi Joshi, who serves as the producer of the film, seems inconsistent with her accent and appears more dramatic and loud than others. Some moments stand out, where the film tries to show how the talented scientist community is also often the most overlooked and underpaid by the government. Then there are a few moments and dialogues which are downright offensive and triggering especially for those who have lost their loved one in the past two years due to the pandemic.

Some of Agnihotri's previous films have been scream fest melodramas. The Vaccine War isn't. He does try to give tribute to India's medical practitioners and scientists who rose to the crisis called Coronavirus and tried to help fellow Indians even as the system failed them. But in Agnihotri's world, it wasn't the system that failed Indians but fake news and media that created the illusion of crisis.

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