Bharat Bhhagya Viddhaata Review: ★★★☆☆ (3/5)
Bharat Bhhagya Viddhaata released on June 12, 2026. Kangana Ranaut leads this 26/11 thriller inspired by the nurses of Cama Hospital who saved over 400 lives. Here is our honest review.
Rating: ★★★☆☆ (3/5)
Director: Manoj Tapadia
Release: June 12, 2026
Language: Hindi
Cast: Kangana Ranaut, Girija Oak Godbole, Smita Tambe, Rasika Agashe, Asha Shelar
Runtime: 130 mins
November 26, 2008 has been retold on screen many times — from the perspective of guests trapped in the Taj Hotel, from the point of view of commandos and police officers, from the chaos of a city trying to understand what was happening to it. Bharat Bhhagya Viddhaata chooses a different, smaller, and in many ways more powerful vantage point: the nurses of Cama Hospital, who kept the lights off, moved their patients into hiding, and refused to abandon anyone in their care while two armed terrorists moved through the building looking for people to kill.
That is the story this film is here to tell. And it tells it with enough sincerity and craft to make the two hours largely worth your time.
The film follows Geeta, inspired by real-life nurse Anjali Kulthe, played by Kangana Ranaut. Before the attack arrives, the first half takes its time with the hospital’s world — the daily rhythms of the nursing staff, their relationships with each other and with the patients in their care, the small indignities and quiet satisfactions of work that most people never notice or appreciate. This groundwork matters. When the terror begins and the lights go out, you are already invested in these people because the film has made sure you know them.
Kangana Ranaut is genuinely good here. She plays Geeta with restraint and focus, resisting the temptation to make the character bigger than the story. There is a breakdown scene in the film that is among the best work she has done on screen in years — raw, specific, and entirely without performance. What also helps is a conscious choice on the part of the director to ensure that Geeta, while the central figure, is never the whole film. The other nurses — played by Girija Oak Godbole, Smita Tambe, Rasika Agashe, and others — all get scenes and moments that register independently. This is a story about collective courage, and the film mostly honours that.
Director Manoj Tapadia, making his feature debut, handles the attack sequences with confidence. Cinematographer Ayan Sil shoots the darkened hospital corridors with an immediacy that places you inside the tension rather than watching it from a safe distance. When the terrorists are close and the nurses and patients are hiding, the film generates genuine dread from the simplest elements—footsteps, shadows, and the sound of breathing. No explosions required.
Where Bharat Bhhagya Viddhaata stumbles is in its pacing. The second half runs noticeably long, and there are multiple moments where the film appears to be building toward its conclusion only to find another scene to add. The emotional beats are repeated, diluting the impact they should have. A tighter edit of perhaps fifteen minutes would have made this a considerably sharper film.
The music, by GV Prakash Kumar, occasionally works against the atmosphere rather than with it. During the tensest sequences, the score tips into heroic territory, softening the very suspense the film has carefully built.
Similar Read: Main Vaapas Aaunga Review
Minor complaints aside, Bharat Bhhagya Viddhaata does the important thing. It finds the people in the 26/11 story who were doing vital, dangerous, exhausting work and receiving none of the recognition. Nurses who managed over 400 lives through one of the worst nights in the city’s history. That story deserved to be told. This film, for all its imperfections, tells it with genuine respect.
Worth watching for the subject, the ensemble, and a Kangana Ranaut who remembered to serve the film rather than the other way around.
Bharat Bhhagya Viddhaata is now playing in cinemas.