Cast: Harshvardhan Kapoor, Nishikant Kamat, Priyanshu Painyuli
Director: Vikramaditya Motwane
Rating: Two stars (Out of five)
Bhavesh Joshi Superhero is about a trio of male friends who, galvanized into action by the 2011 anti-corruption movement, launch Insaaf, a campaign to punish errant citizens, the kind of who break traffic rules or urinate on city walls. As their crusade assumes serious dimensions, the film makes all the right noises, but is somewhat like the snazzy motorbike that the hero, a glowering software engineer who, five years on, is pitchforked back into the fight following the brutal killing of his best buddy, rejigs for maximum speed and high performance.
Bhavesh Joshi Superhero Movie Review: Still from the film (courtesy YouTube)
But when the man actually wants the machine to kick into top gear - in a long, monotonous chase sequence - it acts up and gives him no advantage over his pursuers, men in uniform marshalled by a corrupt corporator, until it is too late. This mirrors the fate of the film. It has many writing and technical strengths, but these do not come to its rescue when they are needed the most. Bhavesh Joshi Superhero is more an erratic, now-on-now-off ramble rather than a scintillatingly smooth ride.
The film plays out in a familiar big city setting where the law is manipulated at will by the powerful, but the world in which the action unfolds is rather inexplicably devoid of women. In regular water scarcity sequences in commercial Hindi cinema, which are normally staged in squalid, overcrowded Mumbai slums, it is women who usually dominate the frame and bear the brunt of the crisis.
Bhavesh Joshi Superhero Movie Review: Still from the film (courtesy YouTube)
In Bhavesh Joshi Superhero, we instead watch shadowy men led by a slimy city politician and aided by government officials and compromised policemen pump water out of pipelines and into tankers to be sold at the price of petrol when demand peaks.
In the same sequence, he says: we are the Indian Justice League. So, you're like Spider-Man, someone says. No, that's is a Marvel superhero, we are more DC Comics - darker, cooler and edgier. For the rest of the film, we desperately look for evidence of those attributes but largely in vain.
Bhavesh Joshi Superhero Movie Review: Still from the film (courtesy Instagram)
Angry lone-ranger activist Bhavesh Joshi (Priyanshu Painyuli) and superhero-obsessed graphic novelist Rajat (Ashish Verma) are the hero's two buddies. It is Bhavesh who stumbles upon the water scam and decides to expose it on their social media channel. The protagonist, on his part, prepares to leave for Atlanta to set up a new office for the MNC that he works for. To expedite his passport application, he even greases the palm of a policeman. Bhavesh is livid at the capitulation. The altercation leaves Siku with a bloodied nose. Bhavesh tries to make it up to him, but a peeved Siku continues to play hardball with his friend.
Bhavesh Joshi Superhero does have political undertones that allude to contemporary political realities and propensities that allow mobs to run riot and the media to let itself be manipulated, but the screenplay reveals these crucial elements in the plot only in fits and starts while the focus remains squarely on the vigilantism that the hero resorts to avenge his best friend. He dons a mask, assumes the identity of his dead pal, hones his martial arts skills under a master, and goes after the culprits all guns - metaphorical, not real - blazing.
One thing is for sure, Bhavesh Joshi Superhero isn't likely to be the super-boost that the doctor has ordered for the career of Harshvardhan Kapoor.
Bhavesh Joshi Superhero Movie Review: Harshvardhan Kapoor Shows Off His Training In A Tedious Film Virat Ordered Special Birthday Cake For Anushka. Courtesy Bengaluru Baker Bigg Boss OTT 3: Adnaan Shaikh Asked To Leave For Breaking A Major Rule "Kuch Compromise Nahin Karoge...": Animal Actor On His Casting Couch Incident Indian Killed In Oman Attack Near Shiite Mosque "Bathroom Slippers": Internet Reacts To Kuwait Store's Rs 1 Lakh "Sandals" Finish Migrant Workers' Ration Card Verification In 1 Month: Court To States Track Latest News Live on NDTV.com and get news updates from India and around the world.