The opening scenes of Reema Kagti's Superboys of Malegaon are breathtakingly beautiful. As the residents of Malegaon wake up and start their daily routine, the camera observes them gently and lovingly. The soft yellow colors blend with the charming music, creating an atmosphere that's almost aromatic (Swapnil S. Sonawane is the cinematographer, and Sachin-Jigar provided the music). There is warmth in every shot of this film. Kagti really loves these characters - she looks at her scenes like a mother proudly looking at her child with a smile on her face and tears in her eyes. It helps that this affection is fiercely brought to the foreground by an excellent cast that disappears into their characters' skin. Shashank Arora and Vineet Kumar Singh are as fine as you expect them to be, but Superboys of Malegaon gets fresh air from the presence of actors like Anuj Singh Duhan, Manjiri Pupala, Saqib Ayub, Riddhi Kumar, and Muskkaan Jaferi. I was a little skeptical about Adarsh Gourav because, in all his previous movies, there are moments where you catch him acting. In Superboys of Malegaon, however, his performance is at its peak. Gourav gives the film a center, a stability. Watching him transition from one emotional state to another is a thing of beauty.
Superboys of Malegaon is about a group of people who decide to make a movie for their community. Nasir (Gourav), a cinephile whose taste ranges from Yash Chopra to Buster Keaton, wants the residents of Malegaon to not only experience Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge but also The General and Enter the Dragon. Sadly for him, his brother doesn't have the same ambition. He wants to run hit Hindi films in the theater to pull the crowd in. Immediately, one starts thinking about the current situation of our multiplexes, which are so overcrowded with mainstream films that the indies struggle to find screens. This is only the beginning. Superboys of Malegaon will throw more such notions about movies into your mind. After tasting success with Malegaon Ki Sholay, Nasir confines himself to the genre of parody. He becomes a formulaic filmmaker who prefers remaking a blockbuster into a comedy instead of chasing originality. This is the plight of Bollywood - it has turned into a remake machine. Farogh (Kumar Singh) asks Nasir to not promote tobacco through the film, which can be taken as a complaint against all the pan masala celebrities, and there is a superb scene where censorship plants artistic seeds. What's more, the main clash - the drama - here originates from the tension between a writer and a director - Farogh and Nasir. The latter walks away with all the fame and money, while the former screams that the writer is the king. In India, it's the actor who receives all the attention. The writers and the directors are ignored by the majority of the movie-going public, except in a few cases. But by removing thespians from this tug-of-war, Superboys of Malegaon proves itself to be a film for hardcore cinephiles (the people who look at the name of the writer and the director before watching something).
Sure, Farogh yells that the scribe is the star of a film, but I don't think, as a writer, Varun Grover has done a good job with the script. Faiza Ahmad Khan's 2008 documentary, Supermen of Malegaon, displayed Nasir and his team as filmmakers who are both enthusiastic and imaginative. Their creative juices didn't merely flow from their knowledge of films and filmmaking. They were also attuned to their surroundings, which is wonderfully evident in the scene where they "Indianize" Superman by making him a victim of pollution and harmful AQI. When Nasir, Akram, or anyone else talked in the documentary, we felt as if we were hearing someone who not only spends time with movies but also lives a life of pain and poverty. The harshness of reality existed side-by-side with the fantasy of movies. Grover, though, creates dull, sentimental figures for the screen. The characters in Superboys of Malegaon are clichés - they don't seem to be based on real life. Nasir, in one of the scenes, becomes a heartbroken lover who attends the wedding of the woman he wanted to marry. Something about this scene rings false. I couldn't shake off the feeling that Grover was embellishing the image of a friend so that he could borrow his story. Or maybe the fault lies in Kagti as she is unable to stitch this thread smoothly with the rest of the story. Nasir and Mallika's (Riddhi Kumar) portions stick out like a sore thumb (whatever emotions he feels in her company aren't carried over to the next scene), giving you the impression that they belong to a different film. Instead of this lame romance, it would have been better if Grover had managed to convey how these filmmakers come up with ideas regarding their stories or how they solve problems during the filmmaking.
Farogh comes across as a hack's idea of a writer. Good stories already exist in his mind. All he needs to do is write/type. Farogh, like mere mortals, doesn't have to stare at the blank paper or screen for a long time. How is he so good? He, um, reads books, which automatically means everything he narrates is nothing but gold. He is a machine - no, artist - who can only give hits. Farogh is such a genius that nobody in Mumbai takes him seriously. The studios want something that has a mass appeal. Grover is so busy making a broad statement that he reinforces the platitude that Mumbai is home to unimaginative, out-of-touch executives. Farogh is fine. It's the people who work in the movie business that are rotten (a female secretary dismisses Farogh with her eyes). One expects such simple, black-and-white strokes from the TVF guys, not from a brilliant comedian whose sharp jokes have the power to graze the skin of a corrupt system, a numb society. As a screenwriter, though, Grover falls back on easy sentimentality. Superboys of Malegaon makes you think that you are watching events that have been predigested, preplanned, and predetermined. Nasir decides to parody Sholay, and while filming Superman of Malegaon, his team uses a green screen with the support of a truck for CGI because that's what happened in real life. We don't feel as if these actions emerged from careful thinking. The characters in Superboys of Malegaon walk on a path that has already been laid out for them. There is no spontaneity in their thoughts. Their decisions emerge from the script.
Kagti and Grover work well in sync when they sting you with understated violence, like when we see Trupti (Pupala) limping. Superboys of Malegaon also inverts the tone of that 2008 documentary by rendering its events with the tone of tragedy. It's a significant change - it gives the movie emotional potency. But Kagti goes for loud melodrama and sucks out all the energy. I rolled my eyes when Shafique (Arora) said goodbye on camera, and Nasir started crying. Such third-rate emotional manipulation doesn't look appropriate in a film that has Grover and Kagti (while watching Superboys of Malegaon, one finds it hard to believe that this is the same director who made Talaash, which was a first-rate piece of moviemaking). However, the worst part of Superboys of Malegaon has to be its final scenes. It's here where it becomes a relentless, lump-in-the-throat weepy. This overdramatic treatment, complete with that corny shot of happy faces watching a movie, kills your mood so drastically that you wish the cancer cells would just leave Shafique's body and infect the fatuous, wailing music. Kagti strains for effect. This "movie magic" shot is a cheap trick, yet the critics and the cinephiles eat it up like a sweet dish. Instead of manipulating audiences with such hokey techniques, why don't these filmmakers actually make a magical film? Superboys of Malegaon is so safe and conventional that it's almost uninspiring. It's a winner for those who don't want movies to be imaginative or challenging; it's a winner for those who say a movie is successful if it makes you cry.
Final Score- [5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
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Publisher at Midgard Times