Reviews pan The Accidental Prime Minister as a badly-made propaganda film

The film featuring Anupam Kher and Akshaye Khanna released today.

"The film is an out-an-out propaganda film, created for the specific purpose of making the former prime minister look like a weak, spineless man, a puppet whose strings were controlled by The Family," says The Indian Express.

"There is a complete absence of any art or craft in its making. Almost all the characters, including the two main leads, Singh (Kher) and Baru (Khanna), come off as caricatures," it adds.

Says Mint, "It takes about an hour before someone says it outright. 'Yeh election Rahul ke bas ka nahin hai'. Rahul’s not up to this election."

"Now, you can argue that it’s the 2009 general elections being referred to, that Gandhi was green then. But let’s not kid ourselves. In a couple of months, another national election will be upon us. Rahul Gandhi is the face of his party. The Accidental Prime Minister is an invitation for audiences to see him as comical and indecisive and a little foreign. It’s a political ad," it says, adding that this is a slice of propaganda so blatant that it may as well have been made by the ruling party.

"Kher is a BJP ideologue and is married to a party MP... Kher playing Manmohan Singh is excellent Trojan horse casting: once he’s inside that voice and that unthreatening manner, he can slowly undermine him while appearing to be sympathetic... There’s little empathy for Singh in Kher’s portrayal, only pity," Mint adds.

According to Scroll, "The criticism of the Congress party as a den of sycophancy isn’t the problem here – it’s as welcome as any expose on the shenanigans of the power elite. What The Accidental Prime Minister fails to do is rise above its pettiness and actualy give us any insights into Delhi’s darbar culture."

"The timing of The Accidental Prime Minister is no accident. But everything else about the film is. It seeks to capture an important juncture of Indian political history. But devoid of cinematic finesse and totally clueless about how to go about the onerous job, it hits the skids at the very outset and never recovers," NDTV says.

"The release is completely intentional: the polls are around the corner," The Indian Express adds.