Supermen of Malegaon (2012) - Documentary Drama

Some movies have “Passion” written all over them – in last couple of months we have seen a couple of them and praised them like anything. I am sure lot of people like me will swear on movies like “Gangs of Wasseypur” etc and will review them again and again to love them even more. This movie has changed my thinking big time of calling myself a movie buff or a movie freak or a guy very passionate about movies and all that – my foot! We are nothing in front of this guy or shall I say these guys – who don’t even just watch movies – they bloody make their own movies and how or what they do – is all there for all of us to see. I can vouch that you would have never seen anything like this ever before and if you call yourself a big movie freak – you’ve gotta watch this one out to know what I am talking about. Hats off to this one man army called Faiza Ahmad Khan of Malegaon, who not only makes his own movies – he lives movies. We are absolutely nothing in front of him – Kudos to this guy and to his whole team who worked so passionately in the movie and what a fantastic final product it is – it had us in splits big time. The sad part is – as in the movie Superman fights with the Tobacco villain – in real life he died of Cancer right next day after the movie got released, but his dream was fulfilled. This is a must watch for all – not to be missed – if nothing else – it will make you laugh big time – especially for those who call themselves “Passionate about movies” this will change the meaning of Passion for you.

Superman and his Girl Friend

Malegaon: It is one of the largest cities of North West Maharashtra based around 300 Kilometers from Mumbai with a population of 12 to 14 lacs. It is on the Mumbai Agra national highway – we always pass through Malegaon whenever we go to my hometown Indore. I had no idea of its existence before I saw this movie and realized what kind of passionate movie freaks stay in there – majority of the population is Muslims and mostly they are into Powerlooms as shown in the movie too. Malegaon came in news big time in the year 2008 for the two bombings in the area killing so many innocent people. They have their own Micro Movie making Industry called Mollywood and they make their own set of movies – mostly spoofs on Bollywood movies with some big names like “Malegaon ke Sholay”, “Shaan”, “Lagaan”, “Doctor” etc. They are all comedy movies made by locals in their own language and even songs. What they like is that the Hero and Heroines of their movies talk right like the local people of the area talk. When they spoofed one of the Bollywood classics Sholay – they made it with a shoe string budget of INR 50K hence the great train robbery sequence was done on a Local bus with dacoits robbing the bus in their bicycles – that will give you a good idea of what kind of movies these guys make – but trust me – they are Hilarious to say the least. you’ve got to check out a couple of them to believe it.

The Villain

Supermen of Malegaon: Its more of a documentary cum drama movie which feels like we are seeing something like a “Making of Supermen of Malegaon”. It gives us quite an insight on the movie and its making, the whole cast and crew too is being interviewed with little snippets of how they make the whole movie. Its very funny to see the whole process and the hard work which goes in the making of a fantastic movie. Hilarious is the way they do the preparation right from the costume, camera, audio, background, cast, hiring, location, songs, dialogues, dubbing, sponsors and in the end you see the final product which is an out and out laugh riot to say the least. The Director is a local videographer who now owns a denim shop for his income and very passionate about movies. He makes all kinds of spoofs on Bollywood mostly and this was his first attempt on a Hollywood movie as with the changing times – he wants to serve something like that to his audience mostly the people of Malegaon. They want to see their own Superman flying over the city and how they do it is the movie all about. It is indeed very interesting to see the whole process – I was shocked to see that these guys are actually pretty advanced to edit the scenes, change the background, dubbing and voice over etc. In reality they have done a pretty good job and made a damn good movie worth 70 minutes. The story is pretty simple as Superman is going through the town on a routine flying expedition – a dude going in an auto rickshaw chewing tobacco spits on his face as mistakenly. Superman chases him and after thrashing him finally comes to know of the villain who is a Tobacco producer named “Dang Dong Ding” and whose only motto in life is to make Malegaon a filthy place, he wishes everyone should just chew tobacco and spit everywhere as his punch line goes like “I Love Filth”. How Superman shuts down his Dang Dong Ding’s tobacco factory and saves his own girl friend from the clutches of the villain is the rest of the movie. He even gets to sing a very interesting song in the movie too with his sweetheart. Check it out guys – I am sure you will love this laugh riot and cherish it for quite a while.