This week the movie theatres offer a rare opportunity to savour content that offers offbeat contentment. But the thing about Reema Kagti’s Superboys Of Malegaon and Soham Shah’s Crazxy (directed by Girish Joshi) is that they are not run-of-the-mill time passers.
Not by a long shot. Both films are navigated by polished direction and a yearning to take massy entertainment into untrodden areas.
Superboys Of Malegaon is the ultimate underdog story of the kind we haven’t seen on screen for a long time.
The closest parallel I can draw is the Tamil Cinema Bandi in 2021. Cinema Bandi is a long delayed (unofficial) sequel to Vittorio de Sica’s Bicycle Thieves, as far away from its original habitat as humanly possible, from Italy to idlee, so to speak. This was debutant director Praveen Kandregula’s Camera Thieves , the quasi-sequel to Bicycle Thieves. There is not a mean bone in any inhabitant of the soporific village of Gollopalli, not even that tall, long-haired guy who tries initially to be mean and scheming with our camera-stealing heroes who want to make their own film.
Malegaon in Superboys Of Malegaon is a first cousin to Gollopalli on Cinema Bandi and worthy a cine-bro at that.
Crazxy has no immediate parallel. It is an untameable beast of its own. A one-man show with mindblowing mojo and masti.
