Fulfilling the social responsibility of the medium, movies need to be made on the subject of education inspiring the younger generation and bio-pics certainly need to be there, based on the life experiences of the exceptionally talented and blessed achievers as Anand Kumar of Bihar.
However, when a film is made without any mission, missing the required vision, blindly following the trend of making quick bio-pics, then we get projects like SUPER 30, which remain quite dwarf in front of the amazing real life educationist, recognized and awarded by reputed orgranisations within the country as well as all over the world.
Giving you the actual scenario, the present era mostly ruled by the corporate houses, multiplex chains and white collar officials approving the scripts and film projects, has actually ruined this kind of cinema, which essentially has to be made without worrying about the box office result, with a vision of bringing forward a personality not known to a big majority of his own country.
But since the decisions are mostly made keeping in mind the multiplex viewers, largely coming in for their weekly entertainment buying the costly ticket, the makers willingly or unwillingly go an adding many deliberate fictional sequences even in a bio-pic of such kind, seriously hampering instead of enhancing its overall realistic impact.
Putting it differently, a subject and film like SUPER 30 becomes the poor victim, when the makers conceive it getting caught in a destructive dilemma having their one eye on the actual solid content and other on the box-office figures wooing the general public. Following such flawed vision, they unnecessarily go on inserting too filmy, unconvincing and cliched exaggerations in an already extraordinary real life story, resulting in a film which in no way justifies the life, struggle and unbelievable achievements of Bihar’s real life icon.
Following the same pattern, SUPER 30 begins on a shaky note as a typical Bollywood film focusing on the love interest of Hrithik (including a song) and then has some exaggerated as well as strange visualizations showcasing an over-effort being made by the director, Vikas Bahl. Thankfully the narration gets lifted the moment Virendra Saxena enters the scene with his appreciable, spirited act playing the concerned father. And for me this particular section of the film remained the best because of Saxena excelling in his few scenes along with Hrithik and Pankaj Tripathi.
To be fair, SUPER 30 scores decently in its first half rightly focusing on the issue of education being exploited as an excellent business opportunity by both the educationists and the politicians having their fixed share. But the problem begins post intermission when the film loses its core path and we get to see a lot of forced, fictional content vaguely conceived by the writer/director for their own reasons. For instance, the competition among the rich and poor students, Hrithik refusing to close his center despite losing, the disappearance of the agreement, the English debate with reference to SHOLAY and the bizarre pre-climax sequence in the hospital turns out to be so amateurish in comparison to the film first’s half.
But above all, what really hurts the project is its confused casting and characterization, wherein Hrithik doesn’t look like the role he is playing, despite being highly sincere and effective. The gifted actor gives it his all but the fake skin-tone and unrealistic accent never lets you believe in the character, plus couldn’t understand why the director thought of presenting him as an untidy, badly dressed and messy personality far away from anything authentic, strongly reminding me of the misrepresentation earlier witnessed in MARY KOM.
Moreover post the initial sequence it was sad to see a few talented names emoting on the screen as mere caricatures including Pankaj Tripathi, Aditya Srivastava and Amit Sadh. On the other hand, all the kids perform decently, both Nandish Sandhu (as the brother) and Mrunal Thakur (as the love interest) impress in their short roles, but the best among the supporting acts has to be of the ever dependable Virendra Saxena.
Adding to the downers, where the songs rarely work, it was really weird to hear the opera kind of vocals used in the background score in many emotionally moving sequences. Also the film shot on sets instead of real locations, never appears to be as real as a bio-pic has to be depicting the actual happenings.
Thankfully SUPER 30 has some worth mentioning merits too coming at intervals including some well written dialogues, a symbolic scene of how a cycle chain gets back on the wheel by reverse peddling by the rider, a quick mention of incapable doctors getting the degree and job through dubious means and a reference of caste-based discrimination still practiced in the society mentioning the mythological instance of Dronacharya and Eklavya. Also the final sequence when the entire batch passes the exam is indeed heartwarming.
In all, one can easily use phrases like ‘made with good intentions’, ‘has its heart in the right place’ and more, mildly commenting upon SUPER 30. But the reality is that this is a strictly average film with a good yet more or less unconvincing lead performance that remains unable to justify the towering personality and hard to believe achievements of Bihar’s Mathematics wiz and educationist Anand Kumar.
The makers rightly work upon their responsibility of choosing an important and relevant subject based on an exceptional real life icon still continuing his work in Bihar, but fall way short of introducing him to the world in an impressive, moving and deserving manner.
Summing up, you will easily get more excited as well as amazed reading about Anand Kumar and his works on the various internet sites than watching SUPER 30 made on his life. And I think that should say it all about the end result. Ideally this should have been a great inspiring film reaching out to its young target audience, but sadly it doesn’t serve the purpose and isn’t any kind of memorable cinema.
As a matter of fact, the poster of SUPER 30 says “Inspired by the life of Anand Kumar and his students” – which exactly is the problem. The film that has been promoted/presented as a bio-pic, isn’t exactly a bio-pic but an overdone, fictionalized version of the real story.
The actual problem with most of our recent Bollywood bio-pics!
Rating : 2.5 / 5 (with special praises for choosing a relevant subject and bringing forward an achiever, who deserves much more recognition, awards and support than showered upon.)
