The Great Grand Superhero Movie Review:

The title alludes to an ageing heroic figure, but The Great Grand Superhero revolves equally around children — young minds always brimming with ideas, questions, and flights of imagination. However, the film is also about the childlike curiosity and wonder that thrives in us irrespective of our age and often keeps us going. As the many minds across generations clash, it's in capturing that sense of wonder and openness to possibilities that the film succeeds the most.

In The Great Grand Superhero, writer-director Manish Saini shows an impressive understanding of what it must be like to occupy space in a child’s world. The plot gets going when Deepu (a brilliant Mihir Godbole), an introverted 11-year-old, decides to concoct stories about his grandfather Jagdish (Jackie Shroff) to save face at his new school where he has already drawn everyone’s attention with his unusual sharpness. While everyone believes Deepu’s grandpa Jagdish to be a secret superhero, the reality might be a tad different.

Director: Manish Saini

Cast: Jackie Shroff, Shivansh Chorghe, Mihir Godbole, Saharsh Kumar Shukla, Sharat Saxena, Prateik Babbar

Manish also exhibits great confidence in the way he pitches the narrative. There is a fine-balance between absurdism and realism. The pacing is self-assuredly languid, and the colour scheme is strikingly apt in the whimsical comic-book-like quality the makers are going for. The dialogue sounds real, and the jokes land. Deepu, and everyone around him, feels real — in their doubts, innocent queries, their witty jibes, and their ability to succumb to an implausible story. There is an innocence and an element of nostalgia (the film refuses to specify the time it's set in) to this universe. There is very little to complain about here.   

There are all kinds of friends in Deepu’s little group, each relatable in their own way. There is a bespectacled skeptic, Chanakya, who is hard to fool and convince. There is a carefree court-jester who is too happy to suspect an ISI involvement in every trivial situation. But my favourite has to be the eternal optimist Laddu (a brilliant Chirag Morghe). As Laddu remains trusting in the face of all setbacks and misgivings, always choosing to see the positive side and find meaning in the most chaotic of circumstances, his character works as a hilarious yet timely reminder of what blind devotion towards anything (or anyone) could look like to a distant observer. Laddu also delivers the film's most overtly sentimental moment when he wishes for a kinder reality at the cost of the joys of a limitless fantasy.

And then, of course, there’s Jackie Shroff as the indelible force of this sweet, little film. While we had Amitabh Bachchan in the 2000s to embrace the ‘grand old daddy’ persona to perfection, there is a distinct humility with which Jackie approaches these roles. There is all the heart, and none of the histrionics. There is every bit of the starry aura, with none of the baggage — and it’s hard to imagine any other star-actor who could achieve this quality. The Great Grand Superhero becomes doubly endearing because of how grounded Jackie’s presence remains throughout. Jackie also shares amazing chemistry with the child artists, who are some of the best one has seen in recent times. This film is an equally disarming ode to his off-screen personality. For a film that zealously preaches about planting trees and saving the environment, there couldn’t be a better or more alluring brand ambassador for the cause.

However, as the film veers towards its finale, its self-confidence begins to wear off a little. There are moments where the film comes close to being a PSA, with an earnestness that borders on cloying. In the final segments, the film becomes too pandering within its self-set borders of a ‘children’s film’ and loses its zing in the process. The effort and the rough edges also show in a few scenes where it introduces new characters, and in the climactic segment where it struggles to walk the fine line between comic-book fantasy and messaging. And yet, I won’t deny I was having too much fun to take many notes. 

The film also captures the idea of storytelling as a tool that unites us all, age or planet no bar. There are many kinds of storytellers out here. It’s not just Deepu who likes to spin a yarn about his grandfather’s superhero missions. When Jagdish first confidently refers to himself as a superhero, we don’t know whether or not to believe him. A little later, we take a small detour towards his childhood — and it’s a beautiful sliver of fantasy. It doesn’t matter if it’s real or not. The aliens too get their little moments of myth-making. “A spaceship must have landed here, making space for all this water to fill in,” an alien in Rajasthani print kurta wistfully tells his friend while looking at a dam. One way or another, we all cook up stories to deal with our surroundings and cope with our realities — among other things, The Great Grand Superhero is a delightful, loving reminder of the same.