Murphy movie review: Prabhu Mundkur’s version of Back to the Future has its moments, but lacks depth

2.5/5

Murphy movie story: David (Prabhu Mundkur), lives with his grandfather, Richie (Dattanna). David’s a collegian, has a girlfriend, Jessie (Ila Veermala), and a few close buddies. Life’s not bad, but the fact that David lost his father, Joseph (also Prabhu), years ago, a loss that he and Richie continue to struggle with is the reason for some minor friction between them.

Richie’s great love is an old Murphy radio, which mysteriously continues to work sporadically. The occasional Goan tune apart, Murphy, as it turns out, is also a gateway to a time gone by, allowing David to befriend Janani (Roshni Prakash). They soon discover that they are apart by a few decades, but have a deep connection.

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Murphy movie review: There was something about director BSP Varma’s teaser of Murphy that piqued interest – enough to warrant a watch. But does the film live up to this expectation? Well…if you so happen to watch a lot of Hollywood movies, chances are that you will have many “I’ve seen that before” moments during Murphy. But if you don’t, then the story that Varma and leading man Prabhu Mundkur have cobbled together may have a sense of freshness.

Of course, I belong to the first category, so the idea of communicating with someone from a time gone by didn’t seem far-fetched. Science has never been my strong suit, so, I’m not questioning how a radio that’s only meant to receive sound waves also transmits them. Although the first thought was a cute love story like The Lake House, the two people talking to each other had too many decades between them, which could only mean one other thing – David’s like Back to the Future’s Marty McFly and has a mission at hand. I wasn’t far off.

The problem with this, and the scores of other films about time travel and timelines, is that I began doing permutations and combinations of possible outcomes and could predict the direction of the narrative. Suffice it to say that the experience of watching the film became a lot less enjoyable thereon. It also didn’t help that the writing of some of the characters could have been better.

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For instance, Dattanna as Richie gets the grumpy old granddad treatment; his conflict with David, the only surviving family that he has, doesn’t make sense. Ila Veermala looks great and dances like a dream, but gets precious little to do otherwise. This is a story that revolves around Prabhu and Roshni, both of who are easy on the eyes and do their bits well. Great sound and visuals also do not help the cause, as one is left feeling underwhelmed in the end.

One pet peeve I had is that Varma and Mundkur also thought that the only way to emphatically reiterate that this is a story revolving around Christian characters is to have them sport-related accessories, a cross pendant, or rosaries, as the case may be. It’s a trope that pretty much every Kannada filmmaker presented with such a situation follows. If not around the neck, the cross has to be dangling from the wrist, at least.

Murphy movie verdict: But for one stray utterance by Dattanna about old age, Murphy is a clean film with a love story at its crux, which may appeal to some audiences. This one didn't appeal to me, though, but then, these days, there's hardly anything that doesn't seem familiar.