Quick Gun Murugun: A Review

The Earth is my bed,

The Sky is my ceiling,

The whole creation is my native place

My name is Murugun. Quick Gun Murugun.

Whatay punchline! What a movie! 😀

It was Sidharth who dragged me with him to the theatre. The two of us desperately had to watch a movie – we hadn’t been to the theatre in a while. We’d originally set sight on District 9, but sadly, the theatre-wallahs hadn’t even heard about such a movie, let alone relase it in this sleepy ol’ Trivandrum! 😐 Leaving District 9 for the torrents, we scanned the papers and zeroed in on Murugun.

The story revolves around the travails of Quickgun Murugun, a desi cowboy, whose only ‘luggage’ consists of two ’60s model revolvers, played by 57 year old Telugu comedian Dr Rajendraprasad. Always clad in Clint Eastwood-ish, cowboy attire (suitably desi-fied), his fight is against arch-rival Riceplate Reddy (Nasser) – who, contrary to his pseudonym, shows the least affliction to ‘rice’ and is intent on making the whole country ‘non-veg’, by converting all veg hotels to non-veg. Now, the purely vegan Murugun isn’t exactly enamored with the phrase ‘non-veg’ (yes, not even the jokes) and single handedly rescues a hotel from the clasps of Reddy’s accomplice ‘Gun Powder’. An enraged Reddy captures Murugun after a spectacular (read ‘ROTFL!!’) stunt at a coconut grove and kills him. Murugun, after a lot of red tape at Mr C. Gupta’s (played by Vinay Pathak) office in the  Ministry of Death, gets his return letter sanctioned and returns to Earth in 2007, twenty five years after his death! Meanwhile, Reddy is a bigtime tycoon and is about to launch his new ‘Mc. Dosa’. Murugun, with help from his brother and new-found love Mango Dolly, ‘googles’ Reddy out, fights him and his accomplices like ‘Rowdy MBA’ and achieves victory!

The high point of this movie is the southie humor. Despite a Bengali director and down-to-last-detail, subtitle, this is a bollywood movie made for the south. You can’t call it a ‘Hindi’ movie, or and ‘English’ flick. It’s 45% tamil, 45% English and some 10% Hindi. The QGM character (born out of the old Channel V caricature) is indeed the USP! The stunt scenes (which have Mr QGM biting the bullet, well, literally), subtly-woven-into-still-racuous humour (The Coconut-climbing training institute, the B/g score – a flute version of ‘The Good, The Bad The Ugly’ theme), some non-veg jokes (all with proper Tam-diction at place); all hit the right note. If you were LMAO at SRK’s Rajnikanth take in Om Shanti Om, you’ll love this flick. Kudos to Dr Rajendraprasad, who has done his part exceedingly well! So did most other actors, especially Raju Sundaram (Rowdy MBA) and Nasser. Lola Kutty (Locket Lover – Murugun’s erstwhile hearthrob, now residing in his locket) and Ranvir Shenroy (The ‘San sani news reporer – the only guy who speaks ‘proper’ Hindi in the movie) and Vinay Pathak (C. Gupta who makes the occasional appearance) are sadly wasted, though. Ghosh has also touched on a plethora of issues like Mumbai’s roads, and red tapism, in the movie.

All said, not all things about the movie are equally rosy. The accent becomes tedious and repetitive at times. Even hard to decipher, and that too for a southie like me! People from the north must’ve had a tough time trying to make head or tail out of Murugun’s wise words – had it not been for the subtitling, they’d have totally been at sea. Same goes with the jokes! Apart from the evident ‘bullet biting’ stunts, many southie jokes go way above others’ heads. There’s always unevenness in the storyline, which is clearly unreal, for the discerning viewer. There’s a comic-book feel in every reel – a phenomenon that won’t go down well with the average joe. It’s again a fact that, the movie as a whole, might seem lifeless, despite the superbly-picturised stunt scenes and the sterling performance by Dr Rajendraprasad. The reason being a visibly staid narrative that falters at times.

All said, I’d strongly recommend QGM! Because it spoofs quite a lot of things you bitch about. Because you’re goanna laugh your ass off at the insanely-funny stunts. Because you’re crazy about vegetarianism and you were looking forward for means to spreading it! (this one doesn’t apply to all). Because you’re goanna rip off all those ‘Tamglish’ dialogues and seamelessly merge them in your daily conversation! (Trust me, it’s uber-cool! :P)

My Rating: 8.563/10

Go watch it, I say! 🙂