Superboys of Malegaon - Movie Review

The Movie: Superboys of Malegaon

The Director: Reema Kagti

The Cast: Adarsh Gourav, Shashank Arora, Vineet Singh Kumar, Anuj Singh Duhan, Muskkaan Jaferi

The Story: The journey of an aspiring filmmaker as he bands together his group of friends to make a film for his town, Malegaon.

The Rating: 6 / 10

The Review: 

Whenever I watch a movie about the film industry, I'm always a little cautious that it might be telling a story that's overly self serving or just a purely indulgent round of self applause so it's nice when I find one that is more just about the joy and love of making movies. A prime example of this would be Shin'ichirô Ueda's One Cut of the Dead, a movie that is filled with the independent spirit that we wish all movies had and, yes, I have to say that Reema Kagti's Superboys of Malegaon can easily stand right there with it and many others like it.

It's hard not to enjoy a movie like this, it's both a heart warming feel good story and yet it also has just enough of a dramatic punch to really get those emotional juices flowing. I really loved the sense of camraderie felt between the men and women as they began their journey into filmmaking which was pretty much out of sheer desperation. The story is inspired by Nasir Sheikh and his friends who just wanted to give people the opportunity to experience cinema in their small town of Malegaon in India.

Of course, the drama comes into play as sudden fame and success tear apart the team and we see a lot of learning experiences and life lessons take place. It was interesting to me to see how the movie itself gets bogged down and loses focus in this central portion of the film only to reignite the magic in the fina act as the team is reunited to make the movie that culminates their journey. I won't go into more detail on that because it's heavy spoiler territory.

There is a fair amount of commentary about friendship, greed, the film industry, culture, and politics and I feel like it is all handled very well and in a way that never feels preachy or heavy heanded, it's all just part of the story itself. This was very smart because we get to see how a lot of the same issues have existed within India's filmmaking industry that creators have dealt with here in the states and, I'm assuming pretty much anywhere else in the world. It seems like money always seems to get in the way of art and telling good stories.

For the most part, I enjoyed this movie although I would have liked to have seen a little more focus on just a couple of the main characters instead of giving so much time to so many. As I mentioned, the middle of the story gets a little lost within all the different people it needs to keep track which ends up watering down what could have been some really impactful moments. That being said, I would still highly recommend this as one of those easy to watch, feel good type of movies that's just really fun.