A Desi Superhero "MINNAL MURALI"

While we mostly look at the west to quench our superhero appetite I mean the box office success of Spiderman is a testament to it. We are still taking baby steps to establish our language industries in the same genre. With a project like "Minnal Murali", we can project this superhero as our very own. The film directed by Bazel Joseph focuses on Jason(Tovino Thomas), a tailor who has aspirations to start a new life in America. The village folk considers him to be a nobody but he doesn't pay much attention to the constant chatter. Set in the 90's fate has it that Jason gets struck by lightning only to possess superpowers and understand his purpose in life is much more profound than the believed constant back and forth and tussle he has with the local police exploring Jason's roots and having to deal with an evil force, someone he has an odd parallel connection with and something that the villagers and Jason never envisioned to tackle forms the basic storyline of "Minnal Murali". The film's tone is perfectly balanced between funny and serious. While the VFX is not the strongest aspect of this movie, its character-building and development are outstanding. Both the hero as well as the villain are written brilliantly. The villain isn't a one-dimensional antagonist embodying all that is evil, but instead someone you can empathize with- this adds an interesting moral dilemma: is it okay to do bad things for a good reason? Tovino is believable as the ex-tailor turned superhero: with enough charisma and calmness to lead the film into its final fight sequence. Some might notice influence from popular superhero movies a few times here and there, but this is Minnal Murali, an Indian superhero story, and the Indian feel never fades away. Many superhero stories often lose their identities in wanting to mimic what the west has done with its characters and Minnal stays rooted in his origin story making it unique and original and something that all of us Indians can be proud of. Sourav Jyoti Kalita 1st Semester, Department of Communication and Journalism