Bhavesh Joshi Superhero: An Underrated Gem
What makes a film great? How do you define a good film? These are questions that has no one right answer. As I sat to watch Bhavesh Joshi: Superhero, for the first time during the lockdown, I found these questions repeating again and again in my brain, while I wolfed down a giant bowl of popcorn. When the film ended, I wasn’t sure that it was great, but I loved every moment of it.
Bhavesh Joshi Superhero, is Motwane’s fourth film, and perhaps his most interesting. Not just the film, the story behind the film is something that Motwane himself has been highlighting over the last few months, with some behind the scenes snaps of production.
I’ll be honest. What got me really motivated to watch this film, was all the stories behind it. Harshvardhan Kapoor’s prep, Anurag Kashyap writing dialogues in the middle of another film shoot and the trailer, which honestly hyped up the story even more for me.
Bhavesh Joshi: Superhero, is a origin story and it has all the classic elements of a Hero’s journey. The film begins with an introduction of 3 friends. Siku, Bhavesh and Rajat, who are all motivated to bring about a change within the country. In Bhavesh’s words, “We think that corruption is shit, and shit stinks”. They start a show called the Insaaf show, where all 3 of them dress up with masks and point out the wrong doings in society.
While most of the wrongs they spot are quite harmless, such as people cutting trees, people openly urinating on walls, they do stumble upon a big water scam which involves the city’s most powerful and prominent individuals.
Due to the complexity of the issue, the 3 friends hesitate at first and do not pursue more of the matter. Siku (Harshvardhan Kapoor) takes up a job abroad and Rajat (Ashish Verma) also takes up another job, putting Insaaf show on a halt.
However, Bhavesh (Priyanshu Painyli) heads to investigate more, and that gets him in trouble. When Bhavesh tries to bring the truth to the public, he is killed.
When Siku hears of Bhavesh’s death, he returns to Mumbai immediately and makes a promise to himself to avenge his friend’s death. He becomes a masked vigilante and searches for the people responsible. He even seeks training from his old Karate master in order to fight crime.
On his path for revenge, he gets caught in the water issue himself, and decides to do something about it. As the saying goes, heroes aren’t born, they’re made, and that’s exactly what Sikander becomes. What Motwane does well however, is that he treats the character like the work in progress he is. Sikander doesn’t immediately transform into a skilled mastermind. He stumbles while he fights, he crashes his bike and there are times he too is left at a loss. One of the best sequences in the film is the bike chase sequence, which is seriously on par with a Hollywood level action sequence. The team shot the sequence over 6 days, and effort does show wonderfully.
Apart from the well designed action sequences, the main issue that the film highlights is the blatant corruption that goes behind water is an important issue that not just Mumbai, the whole country faces. At the same time, he holds up a mirror to the society, and shows the level in which the police operate in the country, and how many obstacles one faces while trying to stand up to the powerful ones in the country.
However as much as the setup is intriguing, towards the second half, the film starts to lose the plot and the adopt some clichés. Bhavesh Joshi attempts to be a different kind of superhero film, but towards the end all the buildup does fizzle out. However, one absolute gem the film brought across is the background score by Amit Trivedi, which accompanies some of the sequences beautifully.
The film falls short of greatness in some parts, and there are parts of the storyline that doesn’t sit well. As Motwane himself said, “The film wasn’t perfect by any standards, but it had a lot of heart in it. And once I sat down thinking about the film a few hours later, I could understand exactly what he meant.
Bhavesh Joshi: Superhero is available to stream on Netflix.
