‘How much misrepresentation is too much misrepresentation?’: Adnan Siddiqui calls Mission Majnu ‘factually incorrect’

Sidharth Malhotra got on the wrong side of Pakistanis with his adaab [hello], janaab [sir], taweez [amulet] in Mission Majnu. His stereotypical portrayal of Pakistanis has become quite the joke this side of the border and one of the many critics of his latest film is actor Adnan Siddiqui, who finds Mission Majnu “distasteful” and “factually incorrect”.

Siddiqui took to Instagram on Thursday where he asked, “How much misrepresentation is too much misrepresentation?”

“I mean come on, yaar with all the money you have, hire some good researchers to do homework on us. Or allow me to help. Make sure to take notes—no, we don’t wear skull caps, surma, tawiz; no, we don’t ask janab about their mijaz [temperaments]; no, we don’t go around throwing adaab,” wrote the Yeh Dil Mera actor.

Siddiqui added that there’s so much more in the film Mission Majnu that he finds “distasteful” and “factually incorrect” and accused the movie of “hero saviour complex”. According to him, the complex would’ve worked better if the villain “was shown at par”. For him, the antagonist was weak and embellished an even weaker protagonist, Malhotra.

“Poor story, poorer execution, poorest research. Next time, come and visit us. We are good hosts. Will show you how we look like, dress up and live,” offered Siddiqui.

The film released last week on Netflix and was trolled online for stereotyping Pakistani characters and geographical landmarks in its portrayal of undercover spy Malhotra as a righteous Indian citizen on a mission to “neutralise” Pakistan’s nuclear power plant. It was watched around the globe but it was hate-watched in Pakistan where people called it a “distortion of facts”.

Click to see more

Mission Majnu also stars Rashmika Mandanna, Parmeet Sethi, Bhumika Chawla, Sharib Hashmi and Arjan Bajwa.