Rocketry: The Nambi Effect

Rocketry: The Nambi Effect tells the story of Nambi Narayanan, an aerospace engineer at the Indian Space Research Organisation who worked on the Vikas rocket engine programme. His career and reputation unravel when he is accused of espionage, turning a celebrated scientist into a suspect overnight. The narrative unfolds largely through a long interview he gives to the actor Shah Rukh Khan, moving between his years of work on India's space programme and the legal ordeal that followed the charges against him.

The film is directed by R. Madhavan, who also wrote the screenplay and produced it with Sarita Madhavan and Varghese Moolan. It was his debut as a director. Madhavan plays the lead role himself, with Simran as Meena, Misha Ghoshal as Geeta Narayanan, Jagan as a scientist, Dinesh Prabhakar as L. D. Gopal and Ron Donachie as Col. Cleaver, among 27 credited cast members. It was made as a co-production between India and Georgia for a budget of about 8 million dollars.

Released in July 2022 and running 154 minutes, the drama was received far more warmly by audiences than by the smaller group of voters on TMDB: it holds 8.6 out of 10 on IMDb from around 62,000 votes, against 7.7 out of 10 on TMDB from roughly 67.