Take Off 2016

Sameera, a nurse from Kerala, relocates to Iraq seeking a higher salary to support her family, which has already borrowed to fund her nursing education. Her husband, Faizal, and their relatives disagree with her decision, and the strain eventually leads to a divorce. Their son Ibrahim is left in Faizal’s care, while Sameera begins a new chapter with Shaheed, a colleague who understands the weight of her burdens and wishes to marry her. Although she initially hesitates about marrying again, the couple ties the knot before leaving for Iraq.

They travel with a group of nineteen nurses to Tikrit Teaching College, a government hospital in Iraq, where they anticipate a calm posting but soon confront a reality far more dangerous than what they were told. As conflict intensifies, the medical staff are stretched thin by a rising number of casualties. Sameera’s fluency in Arabic becomes a crucial asset, allowing her to liaise with local doctors and assume a leadership role within the nurse team as they navigate a rapidly changing and stressful environment.

Meanwhile, Sameera discovers she is pregnant and must keep the news hidden from Ibrahim, who plans to visit for a vacation. Faizal arrives in Iraq with the aim of handing Ibrahim over to Sameera, but Ibrahim struggles to accept Shaheed as his new stepfather. The tension peaks when Ibrahim witnesses the city slipping into riot conditions and pro-ISIS demonstrations, prompting him to flee his quarters before being coaxed back by Sameera. Shaheed, sensing the strain, offers to join an Army medical team headed to Mosul to tend to the wounded, insisting the mission will be brief and safer because it is supported by the military alongside them.

The situation rapidly deteriorates when Mosul falls under ISIS control, and the medical team is captured. News of the capture triggers a desperate effort by Sameera to secure help from the hospital administration and the Indian Embassy in Baghdad. The embassy acknowledges the peril but emphasizes the limits of intervention in a war zone. As Tikrit also comes under ISIS control, the hospital manager is killed, and the group of nurses is forced deeper into danger.

Back home, the Kerala government and India’s Foreign Affairs leadership press for action, while the Indian Embassy weighs the possibilities and constraints. With no straightforward diplomatic path to an ISIS deal, an international Red Cross/Crescent movement shuttle is arranged to evacuate the stranded nurses. Yet the plan is thwarted when the bus is halted in crossfire near Mosul, and several nationalities are rescued while the nineteen Indian nurses remain trapped in Tikrit.

In a bid to avoid targeted harm, the embassy advises the women to conceal their identities and adopt Muslim practices, including prayer routines, and to discard identifying documents. Sameera uses a covert satellite phone to maintain contact with the Crisis Command Center in the Indian Embassy, guiding strategic decisions as the situation spirals. Meanwhile, a prominent Malayalee businessman linked to powerful Saudi figures is brought in to discreetly broker a deal with ISIS through informal channels.

A secret arrangement is struck that quietly moves the nurses toward Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan, where they are supposedly handed over to Indian authorities. Throughout this perilous journey, Sameera persistently searches for Shaheed among ISIS captives and succeeds in locating him before the group is redirected toward Kurdistan. There, India takes custody and organizes a special flight from Erbil to Cochin, bringing the nurses home.

The film closes with footage of the nurses arriving at Cochin airport, their spoken accounts of the hardships under ISIS presented as a powerful letter about resilience and survival. A final, quieter moment shows Jayamohan destroying documents that reveal the unofficial deal between India and ISIS, underscoring the world’s tendency to classify certain actions as confidential and beyond open scrutiny.