Super 30

There is a scene in the movie Super 30 where an upper-class private tuition center head tries to threaten Anand Kumar. And the response Kumar gives to him is that “everywhere you guys have forced us to stand at the very end of the line, even death will take some time to reach us”. That dialogue sort of encapsulates the political reality this movie wishes to address. Yes, Super 30 has the flaws of being a template film that intends to tell an inspiring story. Most of us might well be able to understand where precisely the creative liberty has been used. I was able to connect with the emotion the movie was trying to communicate and despite sensing its obvious compromises; I left the cinema hall with a smile.

So, almost everyone will be familiar with the basic plot of this movie. Anand Kumar, a young mathematics enthusiast from Patna had difficult early days in his life when the financial burden became a roadblock in front of him when he wanted to pursue his dream of learning Mathematics from Cambridge. But his life became successful when he was offered the job of a mathematics teacher in an entrance coaching institute that trained students for joining IITs. But soon Anand Kumar realizes about the class discrimination and he decided to do something about it. Super 30 is the story of that journey.

Towards the climax of the movie, we are shown a sequence where Anand Kumar who was attacked by the education mafia getting protected by his own students using “scientific” techniques to lock down the goons. The movie is trying to create one huge action piece that could replicate the degree of resistance Anand Kumar faced through this sequence. If you apply practicality, then you will feel it is extremely exaggerated, but if you apply the emotion and the statement the movie wants to put forward, then it is an understandable move. Super 30 has many areas like this which you may feel as predictable or pretentious. Somewhere deep down I sort of connected with the statement it was trying to convey and for that reason, these exaggerated representations of Anand Kumar’s struggle weren’t making me that uncomfortable.

Vikas Bahl is not trying to make it look like an extremely fresh take. The approach of the movie is pretty linear. Sanjeev Dutta, the writer of the movie has given some emphasis on the class divide which made Anand Kumar start this Super 30 education program. The dialogues are always about that divide and I felt it frequently uplifted the movie. There is a sense of earnestness in the performances of the actors but that same earnestness is missing in the structuring of the screenplay. They are not trying to present things in a more subtle way. The music from Ajay Atul has that feel of typical Hindi classics and in the background score section, they have done a really good job; the loudness sort of suited the treatment. Sreekar Prasad has done an effective job in pacing the movie in an interesting way and Anay Goswami’s frames have captured the texture of the struggle very effectively.

Hrithik Roshan can be proud of the fact that he has portrayed this role very neatly. The earnest portrayal of the character has contributed immensely in making us feel for the struggle of this character. Mrunal Thakur as the leading lady doesn’t have a full-length character here. Adithya Shrivastava as Lallan Singh was good. Pankaj Tripathi, whom a lot of people considered as the apt lookalike choice to play Anand Kumar was there as a politician and as usual, he was hilarious and spot on. None of the young ones who portrayed the roles of those thirty students generated a commendable impression.  Virendra Saxena as the father character was a joy to watch on screen.

Super 30 is not a superb movie. It doesn’t have many surprises. The tricks in its kitty aren’t that fresh also. But it is one of those movies that you may end up liking despite having flaws, simply because of the intent of the movie that connected with you.

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