Huh! This trailer is not at all what I predicted and the film looks like it might be far better than expected, in terms of performances, imagination, and topic. Yaaay! I love good movies!
I was gonna ignore Vikas Bahl and his whole rape thing when discussing this movie, but after watching the trailer, I can’t. Because this is not just a boring anyone-could-do-it directing job, this is something innovative and interesting and original. Purely from an artistic side, he deserves to have his name on the film.
Which gets into a larger issue with the way #MeToo is handled. Yes, if you are accused, you should not get work any more both as punishment and (more importantly) as a safety measure for those around you. But film takes such a long time between creation and release, the work you have already done is often sitting there, completed but unreleased, when you are accused. More over, film is collaborative. Is it fair to not release something that multiple people worked on because of the sins of one person? And finally, art is art. Sometimes something which is good and deserves to be seen can be made by a bad person.
This movie ticks all those boxes. It was almost completed at the time Vikas was publicly accused. There was no way to “fire” him, it would still be his film no matter what, he is the one who made it. And presumably he had some kind of a contract that meant he would be paid no matter what. In addition, now that I have seen the trailer, this really does look like a remarkable performance from Hrithik Roshan. Should he be punished, and his performance hidden, because of something he had nothing to do with? Not to mention all the new young actors playing the students who thought this was their big break.
And then there’s the really tricky one, correct credit. Based on the trailer, this movie has a unique look right down to the color tones. There’s an idea of sketching animated images to reflect the ideas in the heads of the students (possibly also why it was in post-production so long), and there’s an overall unique feel to the frames, a crowded claustrophobic feeling that evokes the sense of too many people and not enough chances in life. Heck, there’s things as simple as the low angle shot focusing on the money in the change counter, giving a feeling of ominous power to cash. This is a unique work of art. Should the author of this artwork be allowed to sign his name on it? Is there a right between art and artist which supersedes personal guilt?
To my mind, yes. What has happened has happened and we should not lie to ourselves or try to change the past. Vikas Bahl made a movie, it looks like it might be a good movie, and he made it in a unique way that followed his vision. It is right to release the film, and it is accurate to put his name on it. He should not be allowed to make any more movies ever again, and no one should work with him again, but this movie already happened, it is there in the world, and it should be acknowledged. A person can be a bad human being and a good artist and we need to learn to live with that contradiction. Otherwise it is too easy to fall into the fallacy that all good artists are also good people.
If Reliance had said that, said “we believe in our film and Vikas had a big contribution to it. His personal sins mean we will never work with him again, but he earned the right to have his name on this one movie”, I would respect and agree with them. I don’t know why they decided to say instead “he’s been cleared by a made-up internal committee with no authority over the issue!” but I hope people within the industry read the second statement as really meaning the first, Reliance believed Vikas had a right to have his name on this movie and made up a committee in order to have a defense when folks complained, but they never want to work with him again.
Now, as for the actual trailer? I like the angry class warfare feel of it. I really like that it does not try to treat Anand Kumar as a “mathematician” or any kind of scientist, he is just a good test prep teacher. And Hrithik’s performance impressed me, he un-hottified himself with just a little change of posture and mannerism. He convincingly gave me passion under an awkward manner.
The look of it is something new, always hard to film these “teaching” kind of movies because the actual act of teaching (apologies to the teachers among my readership) is really boring to watch. This time they tried to get us inside the heads of the students, draw us in to that sensation of the world opening up as you learn new ideas. That is both interesting to watch, and thematic, making us feel a connection to these kids and understand that they have big ideas inside their heads.
Of course, I still object to the underlying concept because I think teaching to the test is horrible and ruining the world. But at least the film phrases it as “pass the test, build the revolution” instead of “pass the test, prove your self worth because the test is an accurate measure of worth”. And it also has an acknowledgement that it is the test prep classes that make you pass, not innate intelligence.
Oh, and the music is good too! Watching it, this trailer felt like a combination of Gully Boy and Hitchki. And then I felt bad because this film technically came before both Gully Boy and Hitchki, it has just been trapped in post-production for so long that it missed the window of release ahead of them. Hopefully it still gets credit for its innovation coming third instead of first.
dontcallitbollywood 
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/netflix-kevin-spacey-lost-money-house-of-cards-gore-sexual-harassment-fire-a8173401.html
Just saying
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I don’t know about you, but for me if Reliance had said ” a lot of money and talent went into Super 30 and rather than throwing the baby out with the bathwater, we are releasing this one last thing with Vikas’ name”, I would respect them a heck of a lot better than this faked up “he’s innocent” investigation.
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Didn’t I read though that this was a scam and this guy a fraud? Oy, that’s not a movie I look forward to…..but this trailer is good. Hrithik is in an interesting avatar. And just in defense of actual good teaching: watching a genuinely good teacher is not boring because watching kids discover ideas and learn to love that discovering is never dull.
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You read that here! I really don’t like the real guy for many reasons. He sells himself as a “mathematician”, which he is not, and that plays into a whole misunderstanding of what true intelligence is versus rote learning. I think he had one class of slum kids and otherwise runs a for profit test prep company. So the whole “I got slum kids to pass the IIT test!” story is really just more self-promotion for his own company. Oh, and he didn’t actually get them all to pass, because you can’t bring kids who have been denied resources their whole lives and give them one test prep class and fix everything (which is the problem with standardized testing in general, as I am sure you know from your own teaching, it is heavily slanted towards children from a particular background regardless of intelligence).
But on the other hand, I love the way this film positions itself as “it’s not fair that rich kids can buy test scores through prep classes”, because that is a very true statement.
On Tue, Jun 4, 2019 at 9:42 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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All true. The teaching to the test takes on new meaning in India. People who do not speak English teach out of books in English they don’t understand in the slum schools. Its awful.
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That brownface make-up is really disturbing. I’m not impressed with the trailer but let’s see.
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Is it brownface? The color palate is so consciously odd I couldn’t tell if it was make up or just strange color mixing. I wonder why?
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Hrithik looks muddy. It definitely looks like make-up. Because BW thinks that all poor people are dark skinned and that’s how to make the movie looks gritty. Ranveer looked to be wearing darker foundation in Gully Boy too. He isn’t fair to begin with so that choice was even more bizarre.
Everything about Super10 is disturbing – the story itself, the man it’s based on, the actor playing it as if he’s acting in Koi Mil Gaya, the brownface make-up, the fake accent, the English song.. it’s all very very odd.
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I am still optimistic! Because I always am. But if the good elements of the trailer play out (the unusual way of showing learning, the lesson that test prep classes are a cheat and tests show your level of preparedness not your intelligence, the good parts of Hrithik’s performance), it could turn into a decent movie.
Can we at least agree that it looks more promising than Kaabil?
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Kaabil was terrible so that’s a low bar.
Hrithik is so lacking as an actor that I can’t take him seriously. He is playing a math teacher but acting like low IQ Rohit from Koi Mil Gaya. What is he doing?! Everything about him is artificial including his skin ton and accent this time.
Why can’t he just look pretty and make his dumb action movies and go? It looks funny every time he tries to be an actor. Imagine anyone else in this – Abhishek, Rajkumar Rao, Vicky Kaushal… almost anyone… it would have looked more real.
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I have high hopes for his Tiger movie from YRF, that has to be dumb, right? Otherwise why would you cast Tiger and Hrithik together?
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Oh yeah I’m looking forward to the stupidity of the Hrithik-Tiger movie. Both preening and posing, taking their shirts off and showing off their oily muscular bodies, rubber dancing, and flying and jumping. This is what Hrithik and the poor-man’s Hrithik were made for.
I just don’t understand why Hrithik would try to be an actor when all it does is show off all his weaknesses. He has a poor voice and lacks gravitas. I feel like he’s been lost ever since he stopped (or had to stop) making children’s movies. His emotional depth (or rather lack of it) works for movies like Krrish and the superficial silly acting can relate to kids. He’s completely at sea with more complexity – just look at the disastrous Guzarish, Mohendo jaro, Kaabil, etc.
He will be great in that Hrithik-Tiger movie. Stick to it. Next thing we know, Tiger will be trying to act. God forbid.
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Filmilibrarian has a theory that Hrithik was more damaged by that brain injury on the sets of Bang Bang than has been made public. He hasn’t had a big dance scene, or action scene, since then. Could explain why he is trying to do more “Acting” things after that, if his body isn’t working. But the Tiger movie should answer that question.
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It’s brave of him to do an action movie with someone so much younger than him. This could go very very wrong for him if he ends up looking slower and older and not as good as Tiger. What’s going to matter is the action and dance here and if Tiger overshadows him, it could go south for Hrithik. It’s always dangerous to work in a two hero film with a younger actor for this reason. Rishi Kapoor’s career pretty much ended as a lead in large part due to Deewana. Sunny Deol also took a big hit after Darr but since his USP was more action oriented stuff, he was able to survive for a bit longer.
Being on the same side or as brothers of some sort is less risky but in direct competition the way it will be in Hrithik vs. Tiger is dangerous.
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I think Hrithik is a far superior dancer to Tiger, especially in the little gestures. He has a natural grace and precision which you can see even in small moments. If they get a good choreographer who brings that out, not the big leaps and rubber man stuff but the little flipping of the hands and small foot movements, Tiger doesn’t stand a chance. But how many choreographers can do that?
The funny thing is, I remember when Tiger started everyone said “pale imitation of Hrithik”. Now, just 5 years later, we are worried about Hrithik being able to stand up to him. I guess a sign of how fast Tiger has risen and how fast Hrithik has fallen.
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Time and age waits for nobody. Hrithik is middle aged now and there is going to be a natural slowdown. He’s also had health issues. At his peak, he was definitely better than Tiger but that was over a decade ago. Dhoom 2 came out in 2006 – 13 years ago. He was 32 then. Tiger is younger than Hrithik was in Dhoom 2! He’s only 29.
There’s just no way he can jump and fly and move the way Tiger does now. The only way HR won’t be overshadowed is if the choreographer and the writer work very hard to give Hrithik the best parts and leave the lesser things to Tiger. The script would have to be tilted in Hrithik’s direction from the start. Maybe it will be but you never know.
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Back when Hrithik signed the film, I assumed it would be tilted towards him. But that was a pre-Baaghi 2 world, now Tiger is the rising star.
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I found the trailer so blech and nauseating. Mostly because of the brown face makeup attempt to make him look rustic…if you want that look then cast an actor with that look! And more importantly, Hritikh’s accent is terrible…its a parody of a Bihari accent…offensive really. The whole thing feels very staged and inauthentic.
See the movie Anarkali of Arah – with Swara Bhaskar and Pankaj Tripathi – they nailed the look and accent.
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Maybe it will end up opening opposite Jabriya Jodi and we can have a “bad Bihar-y accent” contest! I just can’t imagine that Sid will do much better than Hrithik.
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It’s so artificial that it looks like a parody. I swear Hrithik’s acting looks like a skit from Saturday Night Live. The only thing missing is Jaadu.
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you seem really upset? As if you personally invested time or money.. it’s just a film! it’s just a film and I repeat, it’s just a film.. there there
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I am afraid I set a tone of passionate investment in movies here. I care about them to an unhealthy degree and I seem to have attracted other people who feel the same way 🙂
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Agree about Anaarkali of Aarah, but Pankaj is Bihari, so it wasn’t difficult for him
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Hrithik is the worst thing about the trailer. They didn’t have to dress him so shabbily. I mean he was a teacher after all, here he looks like he’s come in after a mud bath. I agree with you – I’ll be comparing Sid and Hrithik’s accents. I have a feeling Sid might be a little better. Kids look good but I def won’t be watching this in the theaters due to the ick factor.
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Watch Running Shaadi and throw Amit Sadh into the mix! He could be the surprise dark horse with the best accent.
On Tue, Jun 4, 2019 at 2:14 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Amit Sadh was definitely better, but I was just talking about Hrithik/Sid cos the movies are releasing so close to each other. Good JJ was pushed out – they’d be compared directly otherwise
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The accent is very strong but as a foreigner, I can’t say if it sounds authentic or not. I hope the movie will be good because Hrithik needs a hit now, but yes, so many things can go wrong in this film. But at least the posters are very good.
(and while you were talking about Amit Sadh, I just read tomorrow is his birthday 🙂 )
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Haven’t we already done this with Up the Down Staircase, and To Sir with Love, and Stand and Deliver, and a bunch of others? (I’m sure you can list a number of Indian film predecessors)
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IMO Hrithik is not an actor who can do different kind of roles. His bihari accent sounded terrible to my ears. He should stick to the action/ dancing hero type of roles like Dhoom 2 or Bang Bang. I’ve been trying to finish Jodha Akbar from ages and I’m not even halfway done. He’s not an “actor” actor, he’s a star.
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I love Jodha Akbar! I think in that one he actually is acting, but it is a slow subtle role.
On Wed, Jun 5, 2019 at 1:08 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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