Just last year Balaji motion pictures came up with A FLYING JATT that failed to impress the viewers with its highly cliched and mediocre presentation of a Punjabi/Sikh super hero. But surprisingly this year they have released an even more disappointing film, exploiting an exactly similar premise becoming the first superhero Punjabi film featuring Diljit Dosanjh in the lead, accidently finding a blessed magical turban. Directed by Anurag Singh, a well-known name in Punjabi cinema, this is unarguably one of his weakest films that unnecessarily tries to become preachy and religious too dealing with the fantasy subject of a good-hearted superhero and his astonishing powers.
Beginning in the unexpectedly routine manner wasting 30 minutes on painfully long introductions including a song, the film keeps moving without any exceptional insertions, heavily relying on the same old witty dialogues rendered by Diljit in his typical comic style, still enjoyed by a majority of viewers despite being highly repetitive. Introducing the super powers existing in a blessed turban, it turns out to be a strictly average film till the intermission with a few entertaining scenes focusing on the kids in particular.
Unfortunately in the second half, it sadly offers everything we have already seen before in several Western and Indian superhero films unable to make any kind of impression or connect with the eager viewers (including the kids). Some forced sequences bringing in another known face into the proceedings (Rana Ranbir) clearly reveal the lack of ideas with the writers (Anurag-Dheeraj) and then the poor finale strongly reminding you of the highly clichéd 80s kind of climax works as the final nail in the coffin unnecessarily moving into the religious affairs like a purposefully made propaganda film.
Made in a limited budget (with its major portion shot abroad), one cannot really complain for the average VFX and action, but SUPER SINGH doesn’t have any worth mentioning enhancement coming from either the cinematography, background score or even the soundtrack that always used to be an important part of a film featuring the singer-turned-actor Diljit Dosanjh. One of the most in-demand actors in Punjabi cinema and now in Bollywood too, Diljit refuses to try anything new caught in his famous image trap of a comic hero. And the same can be said for the supporting cast including Sonam Bajwa and the veteran actor Pawan Malhotra, surprisingly given an over the top transformation in the end by Anurag.
In all, this is unexpectedly disappointing first superhero film of Punjabi cinema from Anurag and Diljit together. In fact Balaji motion pictures should have released the dubbed version of their A FLYING JATT instead of investing in this almost similar film in terms of appearance and outcome. So you can watch it only if you have kids insisting for the same or in case you can still laugh on the repetitive Diljit Dosanjh unable to come out of his self-chosen image trap.
(The article also got featured in UC-News mobile app in June 2017)
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Shared below are views - Beyond the initial review with some more interesting insights.
One of the most famous and in-demand singer-turned-actors of Punjab featuring in the first Punjabi superhero film sounded really exciting. But I frankly wasn't expecting such a weak, routine and religious propaganda kind of film from Anurag & Diljit together coming as a big disappointment. Moving beyond the review shared above, here are the three major reasons why SUPER SINGH doesn’t turn out to be any novel entertaining experience falling way short of the names and expectations associated with the big project.
Firstly SUPER SINGH fails to come up with anything extremely fresh in its portrayal of a super-hero different from what we have already seen in several Indian and Western movies including a quite similar Hindi film released just months before tilted A FLYING JATT. In fact there is not even a single scene that can be called novel either in terms of writing or execution repeating the routine stuff.
Secondly, here we once again have a highly repetitive Diljit, doing the same kind of typical funny act with similar mannerisms or dialogue delivery as seen in many of his recent films. No doubt, many amongst the viewers still might be able to enjoy his unoriginal ‘typecast’ persona being his true fans, but the actor is just on the verge of falling into a self-chosen destructive trap and soon needs to seriously think over it with his team before it’s too late.
Lastly and most importantly, its really bizarre the way Punjabi filmmakers are too keen to bring in the 'Religious Element' in such films following an undisclosed different motive. A superhero is supposed to be a superhero rising above any religion whatsoever. For instance who cares or mentions the religion of a Superman or Spiderman ever in their films or the famous comic books? But here we have SUPER SINGH indulging in religion as some kind of ‘Propaganda Film’ deliberately made with the insertion of many forced sequences like the one focusing on a kid suffering from Cancer.
Here would also like to mention a very clever strategy followed by the team while talking about Sikhism and its teachings of having uncut, natural hair and a smartly tied turban.
To make you familiar with the Sikh’s sacred teaching/tradition/directive, a Sikh is supposed to have all natural hair, including the beard that is not supposed to be cut along with the hair on his head neatly kept under a properly tied turban.
Now the writer-director-actor trio in SUPER SINGH, go on spreading the message of uncut hair repeatedly in more than one sequences as some kind of religious propaganda film, but never ever focus, mention or talk about the smartly cut beard of Diljit Dosanjh displaying an utterly flawed, biased and cleverly planned strategy fooling the young minds.
In other words, Diljit goes on and on talking about Sikhism, its values and the importance of uncut hair teaching the kid too. But doesn’t even recall his own trimmed beard, putting up a very smart religious show playing the SUPER SINGH. In short, I would have certainly appreciated if Anurag had made the first Punjabi superhero film as a fun-filled adventure movie without indulging in any kind of religious teachings. But in the present format it’s as if the film was made on some specific instructions with a motive messing with its original script.
Anyway, despite the above shortcomings, if you can still laugh on the similar sounding gags, phrases and dialogues rendered by the typically comic Diljit, then you can surely try it once. But for me the film was a big disappointment offering almost nothing.
Rating : 1.5 / 5
