With movies like "Chillar Party "and "Queen" under his belt (despite a forgettable "shandaar") one held a lot of hope from vikas bahl's foray into a biopic. So I went to watch "Super 30" with a sense of anticipation. Add to that my association with the world of academics and of parallel education - I was personally almost excited about the movie.
So, what can the script and the director do to make the movie interesting. I think the director faced the dilemma of whether to make the movie more inspirational or more entertaining. As the director of Chillar Party and Queen - I had expected that he will find this fine balance between the two. I must say that I was a tad disappointed, just a bit disappointed, on that note. And yet he is able to keep the audience engaged for the entire length of a quarter less than three hours - which is quite an achievement. However, to keep this engagement - the director surrenders to loud overacting and melodrama, because otherwise the lack of depth in the story or the many loose ends of the movie would become obvious.
However, soon a commercial almost trivialised bollywood drama unfolds as his life changes from someone aspiring to become a PhD in mathematics to the best known face in the coaching world of the coveted IIT admission business and then transforms into a idealist out there to fight for struggles of unknown underprivileged kids.
Honestly the background music is a disappointment - nothing really is hummable or memorable. It is at places loud and uncomfortable - specially the Hindi Play song "no no no .............". Even the dialogues could have been far better. That would have lent more power to the movie and were badly missing. Only the one where Anand kumar says "ये अमीर लोग अपने लिए खूब चिकना सड़क बनाए, हमारी राह में ऐसा बड़ा-बड़ा गड्ढ़ा खोद दिए. लेकिन यहीं वो सबसे बड़ी गलती कर दिए. हमको छल्लांग लगाना सिखा दिए." leaves you with some jest. In fact the signature dialogue "आज राजा का बेटा राजा नहीं बनेगा. राजा वहीं बनेगा जो हकदार होगा" repeated many times sounds cliched and devoid of any impact.
The problem for the director was that everyone knew the story - It is a story about a person alive and kicking in our current society. We know him as someone who devised and executed the concept of "Super 30" - name given to collecting and training 30 potentially sharp students from poor backgrounds for the coveted IITJEE and to get them selected to the august corridors of the IVY league of Indian education. The story is of Anand Kumar who dedicated himself to this cause and despite the seemingly insurmountable odds and resistance from all quarters, succeeds in the mission.
So, what can the script and the director do to make the movie interesting. I think the director faced the dilemma of whether to make the movie more inspirational or more entertaining. As the director of Chillar Party and Queen - I had expected that he will find this fine balance between the two. I must say that I was a tad disappointed, just a bit disappointed, on that note. And yet he is able to keep the audience engaged for the entire length of a quarter less than three hours - which is quite an achievement. However, to keep this engagement - the director surrenders to loud overacting and melodrama, because otherwise the lack of depth in the story or the many loose ends of the movie would become obvious.
The movie starts with the story of personal struggles of Anand Kumar who is keenly interested and is very talented in mathematics - but the infinite constraints of he being from a poor family breaks his back completely and he was almost relegated to be a faceless of crores of talented Indians who fail to make a mark. This part is well made and is indeed inspirational. It is also very real and convincing. One could feel the anguish of being a talented student among a crowd of smug, ignorant and unappreciating set of people for whom the most empathy with the guy was to get him a job in the post office. It is disheartening to see such talent go waste.
However, soon a commercial almost trivialised bollywood drama unfolds as his life changes from someone aspiring to become a PhD in mathematics to the best known face in the coaching world of the coveted IIT admission business and then transforms into a idealist out there to fight for struggles of unknown underprivileged kids.
The eternal need to have a heroine and a villain in the story of a Hero makes the movie look like a fictional - less convincing - bollywood commercial film in the second half. I would say Mr. India released wayback in 1987 had portrayed the struggles of a man supporting the kids better without a biopic. So there is a "Mogambo" - the CEO of a large coaching business who does everything on and off the book, most unconvincingly though, to kill the Anand Kumar story. Then there is the "calendar" - the brother of Anand Kumar who is beside him in his thick and thin - nondescript but a stellar support. Oh !! and can I forget "Seema" the heroine of Mr. India trying to bring about some "namak" in an otherwise plain daal-rice story of a struggler. And yes - it was needed that the Army of the "Mogambo" will fight a head-on battle with the hero and eventually lose it to an unexpectedly smart and well equipped set of poor starving kids.
{For the uninitiated Mogambo, Calendar and Seema the reporter are unforgettable characters of an immensely successful shekhar kapur superhit "Mr. India" - the parallels to that movie of Super thirty are uncanny}
My problem is not, that these stories are fictional - we all know that they are actually true. That Anand Kumar was shot at, almost killed. That when he was in the hospital - he was attacked by a gang of goons - but the flight of fancy that the director took in picturisation of this sequence turns the movie into a rajnikantish manmohan desai flick minus the imaginative fine execution of either manmohan desai or shekhar kapur. While one was expecting a very real and earthly "chillar party" style of handling those sequences by the Director of that immensely likeable movie.
My problem is also that to turn the protagonist into super hero everyone else is willified and looked down at. So the entire coaching business is education mafia, the entire rich class students and privileged and hence shown as someone grabbing opportunities of the poorer students. That there is no financial or other support to the poorer students of the society that they are almost completely exploited lot. Such caricatures actually increases the distance between the haves and have nots in their psychology. It also builds the perception that only rebellion against such exploitation is the way out for the downtrodden. I think the world around us had changed a lot.
{For the uninitiated Mogambo, Calendar and Seema the reporter are unforgettable characters of an immensely successful shekhar kapur superhit "Mr. India" - the parallels to that movie of Super thirty are uncanny}
My problem is not, that these stories are fictional - we all know that they are actually true. That Anand Kumar was shot at, almost killed. That when he was in the hospital - he was attacked by a gang of goons - but the flight of fancy that the director took in picturisation of this sequence turns the movie into a rajnikantish manmohan desai flick minus the imaginative fine execution of either manmohan desai or shekhar kapur. While one was expecting a very real and earthly "chillar party" style of handling those sequences by the Director of that immensely likeable movie.
My problem is also that to turn the protagonist into super hero everyone else is willified and looked down at. So the entire coaching business is education mafia, the entire rich class students and privileged and hence shown as someone grabbing opportunities of the poorer students. That there is no financial or other support to the poorer students of the society that they are almost completely exploited lot. Such caricatures actually increases the distance between the haves and have nots in their psychology. It also builds the perception that only rebellion against such exploitation is the way out for the downtrodden. I think the world around us had changed a lot.
There are far too many loose ends - a don calling the protagonist from a Bihar jail asking for a cut or closing down his class is simply told on the phone that none is happening and then he does nothing; just vanishes in thin air. The sequence in which the Super thirty competes with the students of Excellence, are defeated and then are saved from closing the venture down was a pathetic attempt to make the heroine relevant. I think that was the weakest part of the script. The English play by the Hindi/bihari speaking students to gain confidence among the elite english speaking student was another unconvincing drag of the sort, while it tried to convey an excellent message actually. Even the attempt to murder the protagonist is stretched and so spills over to look quite unreal. The most unreal part happens to be the climax sequence in which the students of Anand Kumar gangs up to save him from an attack on the hospital. The effort to show that they used the concepts learnt in the classes in dealing with these goons is interesting but unreal.
On the positive side - the academic brilliance of Anand Kumar has been imaginatively captured and picturised. The need for a teacher to go beyond the subject and delve into the psyche of the student and help him/her in areas beyond the subject is well sketched and presented. The unholy nexus between education, politicians and goons is real and palpably presented. The sequence when the kids finally succeeds is very well cultivated and leaves us poignantly happy.
Hrithik Roshan is intense and sincere as always. He played the Anand Kumar rather well. He only looks unconvincing when trying to portray the helplessness of Anand Kumar - like when he sells Papad or when he goes for help to the coaching class CEO. The problem with most Hrithik Roshan movies is that his character dominates the movie so much that most other characters remain underdeveloped. So, despite an almost three hour long movie - most other characters remain distant and obscure for the audience. Mrunal did a fine job of whatever little she was given to do. Virendra Saxena and Pankaj Tripathi both leave a mark in very limited roles that they were allowed. Aditya srivastava through a fine actor was a victim of underdeveloped character. To keep Anand Kumar as a hero he was sketched as a weak, acute kind of a leader who has little idea of what he was doing and often fails in execution. On the other hand - he is also someone who converted Anand Kumar into a brand. Really !? The group of kids were underwhelmingly developed. The movie tried to paint these kids successes as and only because of Anand Kumar.
Honestly the background music is a disappointment - nothing really is hummable or memorable. It is at places loud and uncomfortable - specially the Hindi Play song "no no no .............". Even the dialogues could have been far better. That would have lent more power to the movie and were badly missing. Only the one where Anand kumar says "ये अमीर लोग अपने लिए खूब चिकना सड़क बनाए, हमारी राह में ऐसा बड़ा-बड़ा गड्ढ़ा खोद दिए. लेकिन यहीं वो सबसे बड़ी गलती कर दिए. हमको छल्लांग लगाना सिखा दिए." leaves you with some jest. In fact the signature dialogue "आज राजा का बेटा राजा नहीं बनेगा. राजा वहीं बनेगा जो हकदार होगा" repeated many times sounds cliched and devoid of any impact.
So then if you have read this review till now, you will ask me why am I saying it is a good movie to watch - probably because of Hrithik and because it's an entertaining movie. Don't look for too much inspiration - it is there in bits and pieces but you are fairly entertained with loud music, acting and delivery. It's not quite in the class of Milkha Singh or Mary Kom. It tries to be three Idiots but is miles away from it. And yet its a good one time watch. It does bring out the disparity and unfair competition. Don't look for an inspirational biopic - instead look for a superhero who sacrifices himself to create success out of hopeless poodles. Don't look for a commercial pot-boiler on the edge of the seat entertainment - but enjoy the emotional, often loud picturisation of human misery, glory, frustrations, successes and the myriad puzzle called life. Good one time watch. If someone was to watch it a second time - there will be too many flaws obvious.
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