Opening Doorz

By Martin D’Souza | Opening Doorz Editorial | July 12, 2019

Rating: 3 / 5

The essence: After 30 minutes into the film, director Vikas Bahl goes astray, focussing too much on drama rather than making teaching a realistic affair. The slant is more on appealing to the emotions than dishing out a crisp plot. Hrithik Roshan bares his soul getting into character, but gets no support from the director.

Vijay Verma as Fugga Singh addressing an international audience in Hindi, abroad, on being felicitated for his genius begins Super 30 with a bang. Immediately, the talented actor gets into T20 mode grabbing the attention of his direct audience as well as the movie-goers. Thus, he begins telling the story of his success and the man behind it—Anand Kumar (Hrithik Roshan).

Super 30 is a biographical drama on mathematician Anand Kumar from Bihar and his Super 30 programme to prepare underprivileged students for IIT-JEE, the entrance examination for the Indian Institutes of Technology. For his work, Kumar has received recognition both in India and abroad.

After 30 minutes into the film, Bahl goes astray, focussing too much on drama rather than making the ‘teaching’ a realistic affair. The slant is more on appealing to the emotions than dishing out a crisp plot. Hrithik Roshan bares his soul getting into character, and all that Bahl had to do was snip the loose ends. He fails to make a crackling movie, which it should have been, and goes on preaching mode trying to establish how education should not just be the privilege of those who can afford.

The love angle between Mrunal Thakur is a non-starter (consuming precious time as well), so is the song sequence “Basanti don’t dance in front of these dogs.” This is a rather unfortunate scene and for Bahl to pitch it in even if it was shot, was poor judgement. It takes away the impact of what Anand Kumar is trying to do.

The choice of underprivileged students, too, to prepare them for IIT is beyond comprehension. I mean, you cannot pick up a boy working in a cement factory and put him in an IIT preparatory class!!! The drama is jarring.

Hrithik, however, as Anand, is overpowering and carries the film through just with his sheer presence and body language. Pankaj Tripathi is the other class performer who shines in his short role as a politician who has made Coaching Classes a business model.

The film reminds one of Raj Kumar Hirani’s 3 Idiots as well as Hansal Mehta’s Aligarh. While 3 idiots too focussed on education, albeit in a different manner, Aligarh shone for the manner in which Manoj Bajpayee inserted himself into the character in his all-consuming portrayal of professor Shrinivas Ramchandra Siras. Hrithik does the same here but there is not enough for him to do after a point as the script disappoints.

With a run-time of 155 minutes, Super 30 takes its toll on the viewer, but with Hrithik doing a solo act, it makes it somewhat bearable.

CREDITS
Producer: Phantom Films, Nadiadwala Grandson Entertainment
Director: Vikas Bahl
Star Cast: Hrithik Roshan, Mrunal Thakur, Pankaj Tripathi

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