Written and Directed by: Madonne Ashwin
Starring: Yogi Babu
Streaming on Netflix.
It's a terrific premise, the film psyched me up at an idea level. There are two political parties in a village competing in the local elections. They're both desperate to win, and the single deciding vote comes to a small-time barber. This premise by itself does a lot of things. One, it gives an opportunity to an underdog and it has scope to explore his character. Two, life doesn't get better with this opportunity, it in reverse creates a havoc of conflicts because of this. Three, the setting leaves scope for a lot of political and social satire. All of these things come together through this one idea, and that's the sign of a terrific premise - which opens up a lot of possibilities for what a film could be.
The best part is that the film goes in every direction the premise opens. It starts with Mandela being an underdog, we see him from the time he gets his name, and we see him getting opportunity, him misusing it, him making mistakes and getting thrashed by people, learning a lesson and finally redeeming himself. A satisfying character arc in itself. Apart from this, the film has a lot of satire throughout. This doesn't feel like an independent film for one bit, it makes you go through every emotion and leaves you satisfied by the ending. The high moments in the film, like the ending... are still within the tone of the film. This film just proves that for some films, a good script is all that matters.
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