In Spider-Man 2, May Parker tells Peter Parker, "I believe there's a hero in all of us, that keeps us honest, gives us strength, makes us noble, and finally allows us to die with pride, even though sometimes we have to be steady, and give up the thing we want the most. Even our dreams." Vikramaditya Motwane uses this concept of everyone being a hero and adds other elements from the world of superheroes to give a vigilante justice man who fights corruption in Bhavesh Joshi Superhero. The story revolves around three friends—Bhavesh (Priyanshu Painyuli), Sikandar (Harshvardhan Kapoor), and Rajat (Ashish Verma). Bhavesh and Sikku (Sikandar) get inspired by the anti-corruption movement of 2011 and form a league called Insaaf in which they act as vigilantes and solve civic problems of people. After the fizzling of the anti-corruption movement, Sikku goes back to his job in a software company; however, Bhavesh continues to runs Insaaf on his own. He uncovers a huge scam related to water supply in Mumbai but is killed by the political masters running it. Disenchanted by Bhavesh's death, Sikku picks up from where Bhavesh left and tries to fight the political mafia as Bhavesh Joshi. The third friend Rajat is writing a graphic novel about a superhero named Insaaf Man and plays a crucial part in the film as well.
Bhavesh Joshi Superhero clearly takes inspiration from the genre of superhero fiction. All through the film, we see characters talking about various superheroes. At an early point in the film, Sikku comments that he belongs to something like the Indian Justice League. A girl asks if he is like the Spiderman. Sikku responds that Spiderman belongs to Marvel, but Bhavesh and he are more like the characters of DC Comics. He says, "We are cooler, we are darker, we are edgier." In Rajat's novel Insaaf Man, the lead character is a vigilante who dispenses justice against the corrupt and is called Mumbai's first superhero. Bhavesh and Sikku compare him with the superheroes from Hindi films, such as Krrish (from Krrish) and G.One (from Ra.One). Later, Sikku goes on to become a real-life Insaaf Man who is like an Indian version of Batman. Insaaf Man wants to save the city of Mumbai just as Batman came to rescue the city of Gotham. Mumbai is shown like Gotham, where it is usually dark with no sunlight, and it is almost always raining. At another point, Rajat says, "Doobte suraj ke saamne uski kali sehkaya khadi sheher ki taraf dekh rahi thi. Yeh sheher kabhi uska apna tha." Before the setting sun, his dark silhouette stood over the city that was once his own. At a later stage, Sikku is actually seen standing on the top of a terrace looking over the city of Mumbai, reminiscent of the way Batman is seen looking over the city of Gotham in Batman series. Like Batman had his Batmobile, Sikku makes his own superbike to escape from the criminals. In addition, there are posters of Batman and Superman that can be seen at different points in the film. At another stage, Patil (Pratap Phad) compares Bhavesh to the character Phantom. Later, when Sikku sets fire to the pumping station, the way his shadow is shown reminds one a bit of the '80s vigilante drama Shahenshah. However, what makes the hero of Bhavesh Joshi Superhero different from the other conventional superheroes is that he is not good at this superheroic stuff. He is just as ordinary as any of us. He gets easily beaten up by the villains. He does not think through his tactics. The problems that Insaaf Man tries to solve are not huge like he is not saving the earth from nuclear bombs. The problems he is trying to solve are localized, as one character befittingly calls him the Insaaf Man of Malad. In a sense, Bhavesh Joshi Superhero combines the patriotic idealism of films, such as Rang De Basanti and Yuva, with the genre of superhero fiction.
Vikramaditya Motwane's previous film Trapped showed a darker side of Mumbai—harsh, uncaring, and aloof. People do not listen to you. People try to scam you. Since every inch of horizontal space has been occupied, it can only grow vertically. And, as it moves up vertically, it becomes even more and more distant. Shaurya gets trapped in an abandoned building ironically named Swarg Apartments. No one stayed in that building as it was part of some corruption scam. Bhavesh Joshi Superhero is also a story of the darker side of Mumbai. The city is being exploited in every possible way by its people. Politicians are happy to terrorize a city to meet their selfish interests. The man who works for Patil has the patriotic song Saare Jahan Se Accha as his mobile ringtone but he has no hesitation in plundering his country. And, as seen in Trapped, here also, Bhavesh and Sikku find refuge in an abandoned hotel that was shut down by the court as it was constructed by politicians using black money.
In Bhavesh Joshi Superhero, water is a motif that is present all throughout the film. Of course, the film's story revolves around water, so, it only natural to expect it; however, the film incorporates many other water-related scenes in it. There is a lot of rain in the movie. The film opens with a fight in the rain. Later, we see that all the major events in the film occur during rain. In addition, Sikku is often seen near water. In one of the earliest scenes in the film, Sikku goes to the police station to inquire about his passport. He tells the policeman that he gave a glass of water to the man who had come to his house for police verification. When Sikku goes to his home, a water droplet falls on his application form, spoiling his name on it. At another stage in the film, after the brawl at the bar, Bhavesh comes home and apologizes to Sikku who is drinking water in the kitchen. After Bhavesh is killed, Sikku follows the city corporator Mhatre to his home. While he is driving, Sikku is again drinking water in his car. In the end, after he is captured by the goons of Rana (Nishikant Kamat), he is thrown into the water from a bridge and is seen floating till Rajat rescues him. The presence of water is again highlighted in the story of Icarus told to Sikku by Rana. In Greek mythology, Minos captures Icarus and his father on an island surrounded by deep water on all sides and there was no way to escape. Icarus' father built wings using wax so that he and Icarus could escape the island. He warned his son Icarus to never fly too close to the sun as it could melt the wings. Icarus was too confident of his ability to fly that he did not listen to his father and went too close to the sun and fell down into the sea where he drowned. Rana tells Sikku that he is like the sun. Thus, Sikku being thrown into the water mirrors the fate of Icarus as he, too, became confident of his powers that he could save Mumbai on his own. Since we are talking of Greeks, it is also worth mentioning that Sikku's name Sikandar is also based on the Greek king Alexander. This element of a mythological story was seen in Lootera as well. Pakhi's father used to tell her a story of Bheel Raja whose life was trapped in a tota (parrot). Later, Pakhi thinks that her life is trapped in the last leaf of a tree as if it is her parrot from the story her father used to tell her. The day the last the leaf falls, she will die as well. Thus, a story played a significant part in Lootera, too.
Rain
Water
In some ways, Bhavesh Joshi Superhero is also a story of friendship. It is about three friends who are on the spectrum of an idealist-pragmatist scale. Bhavesh never loses his idealism. Rajat was always the pragmatist. Sikku is somewhere in between. Earlier, he shared the sense of idealism with Bhavesh; however, with the fizzling of the non-corruption movement, he becomes more pragmatist. After Bhavesh's death, Sikku again carries forward the idealism of his friend and even names his superhero avatar after his friend Bhavesh. We never get to see the families of these friends because these friends are their only family. Sikku is the one who performs the last rites of Bhavesh. And, then, there is the wonderful Rajat who saves Sikku from death and manages to actually help nab the culprits. For me, he was the most intelligent and the bravest character in the film. He is a hero in his own right who has the (super)power of the pen. He works for a media company where he is shown writing a listicle on 21 Ways to be like Ranveer Singh. By the end of the movie, he undergoes a change and starts writing a listicle on 10 Ways to Change Your Life. Thereafter he carries forward the legacy of his other friends.
Sikku is given an opportunity to move to the United States of America. He does not have a passport and has to run around to get one made. He eventually has to pay a bribe to the police for his passport. I felt the entire sequence of the passport in the film was in some ways also about his own search for an identity. Only when he is at the airport about to leave the country, he looks at the passport in his hand and decides to stay back as if he has finally identified with someone.
The film is beautifully shot by Sidharth Dhawan. There is a lot of red and blue color in the film. The film is shot in a style that gives it the look of a graphic novel. One of my favorite scenes in the movie is the one where Sikku's office is shown. There is a stunning play of lights on the skyscrapers of Mumbai in the scene which makes one think as to how they managed to shoot it. The film's background music by Amit Trivedi is excellently done giving it a feel of a thriller. It accentuates many scenes in the film.
There is a scene in the film is when Bhavesh goes to help an old man whose family is dealing with the lack of water in their area. He is offered tea but since he is wearing a mask, he cannot drink it easily. He struggles to hold the cup without taking off his brown bag that he is wearing. I found this scene to be hilarious and remembered that outrageous scene from Delhi Belly where at one point Vir Das' character Arup tries to drink water without realizing he is wearing a burkha.
The film is a tad long. The other thing that was also bizarre was that Sikku is in hiding, but he is walking on the streets without any fear of getting recognized. His friend Rajat saw him near Sneha's place and figured out that Sikku was in the city only. Won't the police be able to find him easily as well? The film never delves deeper into exploring the guilt of Sikku after all he was responsible for uploading the video of Bhavesh that revealed his identity. The families of the friends are absent. Also, Sikku will not jump a red light signal but will happily break other laws as seen during the chase sequence. And, as we saw in Mukkabaaz, I again felt that some of the political elements in the film, such as the whole narrative of anti-nationals, did not seem organic and seemed a bit forced as an afterthought and did not fit with the film's thought. If there are politically-charged vigilantes, then, how are the various Bhavesh Joshis who are also vigilantes different from these people? Is there a distinction between good vigilantism and bad vigilantism? Despite some of these issues, I would still say that I liked Bhavesh Joshi Superhero more than I expected when I first saw the trailer which did not seem interesting to me.
Trivia:
1. Self-reference in the film where Vikramaditya Motwane's first film Udaan is seen in the Up Next section on Insaaf TV's YouTube channel.
2. In an interview with Scroll, Vikramaditya Motwane says, "Every film I’ve made has been, in one way or the other, about hope, but Trapped is the bleakest of the lot. But if you take Udaan or Lootera, they’ve all been about hope. And that’s how it should be. Till the point that you don’t get old and cynical, you’re waiting for a resolution and a revolution. There’s always hope that there’s a better world."
3. Mario Puzo's The Godfather and Abraham Lincoln
4. Revolution is written on Bhavesh's shirt
5. Newton and Bhavesh Joshi Superhero
6. Michael Jackson's We Are The World
7. Gulzar on the board and the club plays songs from Omkara
8. At one point, Pinga from Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Bajirao Mastani can be heard. Vikramaditya Motwane has worked with Sanjay Leela Bhansali before.
9. Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction in Sikku's room
10. When Sikku is at the hospital, Rajat tells the doctor that his name is Mohan. I was curious about this choice. Was it related to Gandhi's first name Mohan, or as Baradwaj Rangan writes in his review that the film reminded him of Mohan Joshi Haazir Ho!, perhaps, Mohan is related to that.
11. Marvel and DC Comics
12. The photographs of the people in the background have flowers, which shows the passing of time.
Other Reading:
1. On Lootera—Link
2. On Lootera (Second Post)—Link
Dialogue of the Day
"Superheroes paida vaida nahi hote, bante hain."
—Bhavesh Joshi, Bhavesh Joshi Superhero
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