Recently, I did a first-time watch of The Blues Brothers, which is indeed a very fun wacky time. How can you go wrong with a movie mixing together John Belushi’s comic timing with a musical number hinging on Aretha Franklin’s singing? Despite this being a silly comedy rooted in Saturday Night Live lore, though, I kept thinking about mortality while watching The Blues Brothers. Specifically, how many on-screen performers had passed away yet lived on eternally in this feature. Belushi will always be ding cartwheels in The Blues Brothers. The iconic pipes of James Brown and other deceased musicians will never go silent so long as this movie keeps playing. Carrie Fisher will never stop blowing up phone booths without blinking thanks to this enduring yukfest. These artists have passed on, but they live eternal on the big screen.
It’s a reality reminding me of one of Babylon’s greatest quotes. In this Damie Chazelle-directed classic, gossip columnist Elinor St. John (Jean Smart) informs silent movie star Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt) that he's achieved immortality as a film actor. "One day, every person on every film shot this year will be dead,” St. John remarks. And one day, all those films will be pulled from the vaults, and all their ghosts will dine together, and adventure together, go to the jungle, to war together. A child born in 50 years will stumble across your image flickering on a screen and feel he knows you, like... like a friend, though you breathed your last before he breathed his first...you'll spend eternity with angels and ghosts." Those lines really capture the heart of film as a time capsule keeping its on and off-screen participants alive.
Right from the get-go, Superboys of Malegaon director Reema Kagti and screenwriter Varun Grover demonstrate their keen knowledge of cinema's power by acknowledging this facet of the artform. As protagonist Nasir Shaikh (Adarsh Gourav) cuddles with his lover Mallika (Riddhi Kumar) in an otherwise empty auditorium watching a Bruce Lee movie, Mallika remarks how tragic it is that this action cinema master died so young. Nasir professes some confusion. Bruce Lee isn't dead, he informs Mallika. "Look how high he can kick!" Nasir concludes as they both absorb Lee's cinematic legacy. As long as somebody enjoys this man's filmography, he's never gone. Lee and his kicks can live on and on.
That thoughtful approach to the movie magic crystallizes how Superboys of Malegaon works so well as the latest addition to the canon of charming movies about homemade motion pictures. This successor to the likes of Be Kind Rewind, Brigsby Bear, and American Movie begins in 1997 in Malegaon, a small city nestled within Maharashtra, India. This domain, more known for textiles than producing noteworthy individuals, houses Nasir Shaikh, who loves splicing together pre-existing movies (like Jackie Chan or Buster Keaton vehicles) to make new films that can dazzle his neighbors at his brother’s movie theater. Once police shut down this operation over “piracy” concerns, though, Nasir comes up with a brilliant new idea.
Him and his friends will craft their own motion picture (a remake of the hit film Sholay) in their own backyard. It’s time to make a movie in Malegoan for the denizens of Malegaon. So begins Superboys of Malegaon’s most affecting sequences in depicting Nasir and his ragtag buddies pulling off their own film. Much like with the most memorable stretches of Living in Oblivion, Superboys wrings effective comedy and entertainment out of all the little struggles of pulling off a film. Bizarre auditions, actors struggling to remember lines, crew member forgetting to hit record on the camera, it’s all here in an amusing fashion. However, Kagti also realizes this true story with such engaging sincerity mixed in with acknowledgment of how impossible this whole saga is.
Emphasizing the ordinary nature of Nasir and his friends make the staggering stakes of their creative endeavor palpable. These are guys whose artistic ambitions are dismissed by their parents and require matchstick company sponsorships to pull off moviemaking. Watching them cling to the joys of artistic creation, not to mention the cathartic triumph of actually getting scenes shot, in the middle of all these firmly established hurdles just makes one’s heart sing. The desire to create art really endures no matter what!
Kagti also demonstrates a keen eye for how to visually suggest the deeper lives of these ramshackle artists. My favorite of these comes when Nasir tries to approach professional actress Tripti (Manjiri Pupala) to be in their movie. Just before he starts talking to her, Tripti is standing at a crafts table. Here, the viewer sees her silently sneak a roll into her purse before carrying on like nothing happened. Though she acts like a big shot to Nasir ("I require a make-up room and orange juice every morning!" she commands as part of her stipulations for being his leading lady), that glimpse of her tucking away some bread for later communicates how she could also use a steady acting gig. There’s something so discernibly human about this little glimpse into her private life that makes Tripti someone we’re invested in.
If any figure in Superboys of Malegaon embodies the features amiable and emotionally engaging nature, it’s Shashank Arora’s performance as Shafique. Nasir’s loyal and quiet pal, Arora has these profoundly soft yet expressive eyes that immediately make you root for him. To boot, Arora’s depiction of Shafique’s suppressed dreams (namely to be an actor in Nasir’s movies) while maintaining the character’s naturally withdrawn demeanor is incredibly impressive. Just through the way Arora tilts his head to the ground, my heart ached for his plight. He’s the perfect emotional anchor for Superboys of Malegaon, particularly in a third-act that could’ve come off as endlessly treacly if he wasn’t around.
That final act comes after a pair of time jumps (one to 2004, another to 2010) that do ensure Grover’s screenplay succumbs to a problem of excessive plot threads that many music biopics struggle with. Superboys of Malegaon covers nearly 15 years in the lives of Nasir and friends in just two hours. Inevitably, some characters and corners of this world (namely Nasir’s domestic life with his eventual wife) feel undercooked. Cinematographers Swapnil S. Sonawane and Parnil Vishwasrao also lend Malegaon a serviceable but not especially distinctive visual aesthetic. Leaning more into idiosyncratic imagery, particularly to differentiate the three time periods chronicled in the narrative, would’ve been more than welcome.
Still, Superboys of Malegaon works terrifically where it needs to. The heartfelt sequences of everyday people coming together to make something bigger than themselves are deeply moving. Kagti’s execution of this real-world saga has a tangible love for cinema, but also never loses sight of the beating human hearts required to make those films a reality. Perhaps Superboys of Malegaon will only work for softies like me with Brigsby Bear posters on their wall and a fondness for stories about scrappy artists. However, this production’s feel-good charms are bound to impress even the most jaded viewers. Heck, Superboys of Malegaon (which eventually features its lead characters making their own Superman film) manages to give James Gunn some serious competition for the title of best 2025 Superman movie!