Martin Luther King review: Puja Kolluru’s political satire is promising yet misguided

Set in a fictional village with fictional caste groups, Martin Luther King positions itself as a satire on the Indian democracy. The protagonist (Sampoornesh Babu) is a lowered caste man who goes by the nickname Smile (and other derisive epithets coined by dominant caste villagers). He has no documents to prove his identity, and when he is finally forced to get his Aadhaar made, the local postmaster (Vasantha, played by Sharanya Pradeep) names him after Martin Luther King Jr., citing how like Smile, the American civil rights revolutionary also fought for identity. Smile’s rechristening as King leads us to hope for a fiery takedown of caste structures in the village, but what follows is an occasionally funny, albeit muddled satire on electoral politics in India. 

Martin Luther King is director and editor Puja Kolluru’s debut outing, and the film is a remake of Madonne Ashwin’s 2021 Tamil film Mandela. The plot is set in a village called Padamarapadu, split into two caste factions – Northerners and Southerners. Lokmanya Tilak aka Loki (Venkatesh Maha, who is also the film’s creative producer and has adapted Madonne Ashwin’s script into Telugu) leads the Southerners, and Jagjivan Ram (Naresh) leads the Northerners. When their father falls ill, they contest the panchayat election for selfish reasons. With all villagers staying loyal to their own castes, the votes are split equally, and King – who faces caste discrimination from the entire village until then – is suddenly vested with the ‘power’ of the deciding vote. What follows is how the two factions vie for King’s vote through gifts, coercion, and violence. 

The comedy of uncomplicated metaphors, and the assortment of village residents with varied quirks, evoke laughs in quite a few scenes. The film also inventively uses burra katha (an oral storytelling art form) and old-timey film music from Chiranjeevi films to accentuate the narrative.

Venkatesh Maha and Naresh effortlessly slip into their roles as caste fanatics. Venkatesh is particularly entertaining as a comic, yet menacing villain. However, the film largely rests on the shoulders of ‘Burning Star’ Sampoornesh Babu, known for acting in parody films such as Kobbari Matta and Hrudaya Kaleyam. But his performance as a sometimes naive, other times conniving man, falters quite a bit. In some scenes, his delivery of simple lines with childlike optimism – reminiscent of his earlier parody work – makes it hard to take his earnestness seriously. 

While Sharanya Pradeep’s performance as a righteous government official is engaging, she is projected as the ‘voice of reason’. And her moralistic attitude towards King and the audience is where much of the film’s problem lies. 

When King inadvertently gets his voter’s ID, his deciding vote briefly turns him into a king(maker). The two candidates and their followers are forced to treat him with dignity. The man, shown as an unworldly simpleton till then, is suddenly transformed into a ‘calculating trickster’, or at least that’s how the film urges us to look at the events. After years of performing unpaid labour, King finally uses his vote as a bargain for better work and living conditions, including basic rights such as food and water. Although from a lens of caste injustice, this merely seems like rightful reparations for years of wage theft, the film itself wants us to believe that it is immoral to accept ‘freebies’. 

When the two caste groups try to woo King with platefuls of fresh meals and biryani, his acceptance is comically shown as greed. King’s companion, a young boy named Bata (because King dreams of owning a big footwear store), is another ‘voice of reason’, dissuading him from accepting ‘freebies’ and insisting on ‘earning’ them instead, despite the fact that the villagers never ever pay them fairly. 

Later in the film, when King refuses a plain bun left by his side by a sympathetic villager, the movie suggests that his deviant moral compass has been neatly restored. But it is questionable as to whose morality he must adhere to, to be perceived as a good citizen and a responsible voter. 

The film thereby ends up tasking the most powerless, marginalised citizen with the responsibility of ensuring a functioning democracy in his village. Only when King uses his power for the ‘greater good’ of the entire village is he deemed worthy of it. It’s all very “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country,” which seems especially disputable and almost cruel when applied to someone who has been failed by the state and society all his life. While metaphors can be simplistic, the ideas they try to articulate need not be so.  

However, the writing and acting are good enough to have us emotionally invested in King’s journey. Martin Luther King ends on a cautiously optimistic note, but it could have taken a more layered, analytical route to comment on caste and electoral politics.