Bollywood Baatein: Minnal Murali & Mail- two South Indian comedies that got it just right

Basil Joseph’s Malayalam blockbuster Minnal Murali is incontrovertibly the Indian Film of The Year 2021. Not only did it break through the language barrier to connect with audiences in every part of India, it did to the Indian super-hero film what Lagaan had done to the sports genre.

Minnal Murali is Malayalam cinema’s first super-hero film. To this, we can safely add that it is India’s first successful attempt at a super-hero film which is funny, entertaining and thoroughly satisfying.

Considering what Indian cinema has to offer in the genre—the memory of Remo D Souza’s The Flying Jatt with Tiger Shroff as a super-hero, still makes me shudder— Minnal Murali is not only welcome, it is a film we need to celebrate for capturing the spirit of the super-hero genre while preserving a pungent indigenous flavour.

It is like dipping meatballs into sambhar and coming up with a taste that is familiar fresh and inviting.

Wisely, director Basil Joseph sets the action in a small sleepy gossipy town in Kerala. This immediately scales down the cultural expanse of the idea, delimiting at the same time, dilating and accenting the plot and the characters instead of focusing on the special effects.

At times the jokes seem tailormade to accommodate the tailor-hero’s modest tell-tale transition into super-heroism. When Jaison (Tovino) tries to fly to test his superhero skills, he falls flat on his face, thereby sparing the film’s budget from flying costs.

“Let’s not push it,” counsels Jaison’s wise nerdy nephew Josemon (Vashisht Unesh), an advice well taken by the film’s makers who know where to draw the line.

The presentation though modest in vision, is never tacky. The climax where Good Superhero combats Bad Superhero is impressively staged, though not on the scale that Marvel films are shot at. Here the focus is on the way the superhero powers affect the characters rather than on the spectacle and special effects.

It all starts when two unrelated character Jaison (Tovino Thomas) and Shibu (Guru Somasundaram) are struck by a lightning at the same time, though not at the same place. They both wake up to sense of physical strength and emotional turmoil that renders their routine life more adventurous than they had bargained for.

Right away let’s salute the super-acting powers of the two humble super-heroes who helm this engaging fable of the caped scaled down crusaders.

Tovino Thomas is the rising star of Malayalam cinema. See him as the confused reluctant endearing super-hero, and you’ll know why. However it is Guru Somasundaram whose emotional responses to his character’s newly-acquired powers that anchor the plot, and irrigate its irrational hurl into an odd and uncharted orbit.

Somasundaram’s look of gratitude and vindication when the woman he has loved all his life accepts his love, is a textbook illustration of emotive empowerment.

Minnal Murali is an intimate character-study of power and its utilisation in a world progressively driven by greed. The film has some terrific action sequences, more fun than fearful, where the characters play out a kind of perky precocious pantomime of super-heroism.

In one feisty sequence Tovino’s superhero takes on a vindictive cop (well played by Baiju) with riffs from Queen’s ‘Another One Bites The Dust’ playing in the background.

It’s a joyride from the first to the last, powered by a sense of logistic fantasy—if that makes any sense— whereby the obvious absurdities of a flying crusader are melted down to a ground-level intrepidity born more of necessity than vanity. Yes, this homespun superhero film does overstay its welcome. But you know how we Indians are. We never when to stop. And that’s the way (aha aha) we like it.

Much lower down the scale of reach, though nonetheless a clutter breaker, and except for one monstrously glaring factual error in the plot, Mail in Telugu is a charming gaze at the artless innocence of villagers in Kambalapally in Telangana where the computer has just come. The curiosity bordering on reverence of 18-year-old Ravi (newcomer Harshith Malgireddy) is not only amusing but also deeply moving, if you are a sucker for rustic innocence.

The intelligently-written script takes slurping swipes at all the inceptive misconceptions about the computer: the only man in the village who owns a computer, believes that any footwear in the sacred room housing the precious sacred digital deity can cause a virus.

The computer becomes the fulcrum of some outstanding but subtle humour, never savage always tender. In one of the many casually canny sequences, Ravi panics when the computer signals a switch-off beep, and he doesn’t know where to find the electrical outlet to control the impending catastrophe.

This could well be Mail-gudi Days. And Harshith Malgireddy could well be Narayan’s Common Man in his youth. The fresh talent is truly charming. While Malgireddy is every inch the inquisitive techno-ignoramus, Manu Segurla as Ravi’s best friend is even better. Segurla’s casual causticity and biting sarcasm will kill you. If not, then he is someone you don’t want to run into , specially if you are in no position to lend him money.

This must be one of the best written comedies of Indian cinema of all times. There is just one fatal flaw. The characters are shown using gmail. There was no gmail in the inceptive years of the computer.

(This article was first published in National Herald on Sunday)