Consistent tone is an issue for any director, I daresay. This is certainly true of the writer/director of today’s superhero indulgence, Prasanth Varma. Hanu Man begins not with the hero, but with the villain. Michael (Vinay Rai as an adult) is a hero-obsessed tween. His obsession immediately results in a broken arm at which point his parents put an end to this comic book hero worship. Cuz, yeah, you can just tell a kid to stop an obsession and that will be the end of it.
Reasoning that Batman didn’t have parents and Spider-Man didn’t have parents, Michael kills his own parents (boy, that got dark fast, huh?) leaving him free to pursue a future career of superheroism.
That sets a tone, yes? You don’t have a young boy kill his parents in one scene and then cut to a scene of Ted talking about “boobs,” do you? … Or do you?
This is my problem with Hanu Man and – if I’m being fair- a problem consistent with hyperbolic Indian film. Eventually, this film is going to introduce Hanu Man, an ordinary bloke who has acquired magical superpowers, and in testing them out, we invariably get a dude who puts his fist through a tree and then looks around with an incredulous “WOW!” face indicative of quality overacting. The point is, there is nothing in the hyperbolic recognition of superpower that matches the tone of a boy killing his parents. To say these things are disparate is to undersell how disparate they are. And that’s Hanu Man.
Hanumanthu (Teja Sajja) is your average slingshot-wielding loser. I dunno how old you have to be before the slingshot stops being your affectation of choice, but in this country, it’s about age seven … and that was only in the 1930s. Granted, rural India is different. Yet this is still an unemployed, approaching middle-age grown man wielding a slingshot to steal fruit from monkeys. And when he tries to use to weapon to create social justice, he gets his shot slinged.
After a particularly harsh failure of justice, Hamumanthu is hurled into a river which is actually the ocean where he finds the eye of Sauron. Seriously, he finds a pearl which looks like the eye of Sauron. Turns out this is divine blood encased 
in amber which either produces dinosaur DNA or grants the bearer superpowers, but only while the sun is out. Gee, it’s a good thing Hanu Man doesn’t fight crime in, say, Seattle; he’d never have superpowers.
Eventually, of course, Hanu Man will have to face off against Michael, who grew up to be the Batman-like Mega Man. As an adult, Mega Man has embraced his evil. He is not, unfortunately, voiced by Will Ferrell. Before Hanu Man takes on Mega Man, he first has to confront his community’s hefty extortion problem. The local warlord/governor has his own “protection” racket. He meets any dissent by wrestling the contrary voice to the death. Yes, these things are all in the same silly film.
I enjoyed Hanu Man to a point, even with the mismatched tone. That point did not account for three hours of hyperbole. I gotta hand it to Indian cinemaphiles; you definitely get your money’s worth in volume of film. I found this same story could have easily been told in 90 minutes. And maybe a different edit could make me less queasy about the slingshot bearing adult and the parent-killing child.
A grown man, master of slingshot
Entered into every squabble red hot
Yet his weapon, it seems
Was not one of dreams
Justice backfired more often than not
Not Rated, 158 Minutes
Director: Prasanth Varma
Writer: Prasanth Varma
Genre: Super … ?
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Fans of Indian film
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: People who don’t like emotional manipulation
