Sampoornesh Babu’s ‘Martin Luther King’ cleverly satirizes socio-political themes
The story revolves around a man, born into hardship, unaware of his own name. When he attempts to cast his vote in the village elections, a female voting official suggests that if he lacks confidence, he should adopt the name Martin Luther King to assert his significance.
New Delhi: The trailer for the socio-political satire ‘Martin Luther King’, starring Telugu actor Sampoornesh Babu, comes through as a witty and engaging movie that deals with serious contemporary themes in a comical tone with an underlying message.
Based on a man who is downtrodden by birth and doesn’t even know his own name, when he goes to vote in the local village elections, the voting official (a woman) tells him that if he isn’t smart then he should call himself Martin Luther King so as to give away his importance.
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While the protagonist figures out the village politics, there is a lot of commentary that is being made on the way politicians work even at the local levels to curry favours, so as to gather votes from the community.
There appears to be a divide on the basis of communities in the North and South of the village and to curry favour, the politicians employ all kinds of tactics ranging from appeasement, bribery, offering freebies, as well as special incentives for their own communities.
During all of this, while the character of Martin himself doesn’t know how to vote, he nonetheless is able to capitalise on the whole thing and amass himself much favour by promising Rs 1 lakh to the politicians for his one vote.
Now, Martin Luther King is given great favours by everyone in the village, offering him imported drinks, the best food, furniture, clothes, and more. But as his lie is caught, Martin is beaten by the villagers and ostracised.
With the vote official chiding him for his stupidity and not understanding the importance of his vote, Martin Luther King begins to fathom the importance of just how important every vote is, leading to the theme ‘Every vote counts’.
An official remake of the Tamil film ‘Mandela’ which starred Yogi Babu, ‘Martin Luther King’ is directed by debutant filmmaker Puja Kolluru and stars Sampoornesh Babu in the lead role. It also features actors Venkatesh Maha, Naresh and Sharanya Pradeep, in supporting roles.
