Two men are struck by lightning, and after that they get superpowers. One of them is selfish, and he wants to leave town, while the other has mental health problems, and he can be dangerous if he loses someone he cares about. So how will they use their new superpowers?
Minnal Murali is an Indian superhero movie, and I have to say that I enjoyed the movie. The story takes place in a small town, so the universe is very small. The movie could remind me of Unbreakable with Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson. But Minnal Murali is a much longer movie, maybe too long, and it’s a much warmer movie than Unbreakable.
There are few action scenes in Minnal Murali. The movie focuses on the protagonist and the antagonist and the way they use their new superpowers. What I found interesting was that the antagonist doesn’t seem like an evil man. He has just bad luck in life. You can understand the way he behaves when things go wrong for him. You feel sorry for him. You understand his frustration. He’s tired of being the last one in line. He wants the opportunity in life to prove that he’s a good and caring man. But life hits him hard in the face every time.
The protagonist is a somewhat selfish man who wants to leave town. There’s not much interesting things going on in his life, so compared with the antagonist, his character is bland. He’s a character they could have written better.
Even if people are killed, Minnal Murali has, for the most part, a light and cheerful atmosphere with a lot of humor. But not everything is perfect here.
I felt that some important scenes ended too abruptly. Especially the scene in town when the antagonist and protagonist are uncertain what to do when a mob has targeted them, and the mob is preparing to attack one of them. This scene ends abruptly, and suddenly the protagonist and the antagonist are in two different places. How did they get there so fast when the mob was about to attack one of them? How did the one who was attacked escape?
As mentioned, there are few action scenes in the movie. Those we see are simplistic but good, and I guess the budget was a limiting factor. The cinematography is great, and I can say the same thing about the solid score.
I liked Minnal Murali. I liked that it focused on the characters and who they are as human beings. This is a movie that focuses on the antagonist, and we see and understand that he isn’t a bad person. But bad things happen to him. It’s a story about ordinary people who have to decide who they are, and what they should do with their superpowers. The movie has a cozy feeling, which I also appreciated. So this is a movie for the whole family. But I wish it was 30 minutes shorter.
It’s much more entertaining, and it tells a better story than most superhero movies that they have made in Hollywood the last five years.