It's the Village of People Who Don't Ask Follow Up Questions!

Superheroes are associated with cities; Superman protects Metropolis, Batman lurks in Gotham, and Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends hang out in New York City.  In India, though, things are different.  Sure, Krrish lives in Mumbai, but many of India's cinematic superheroes are rural, protecting India's wide open spaces.  And in Veeran (2023), the hero finds plenty of danger and adventure while confined to a single village.

When he was fifteen years old, Kumaran (Hiphop Tamizha Adhi) was struck by lightning and fell into a coma, so he was sent to Singapore to recover.  Fourteen years later, he returns to his native village of Veeranor and reunites with his childhood friends Sakkarai (Sassi Selvaraj) and Selvi (Athira Raj), along with his own skeptical father (Jeeva Ravi.)  Sakkarai assists his grandfather, who is both the village barber and the priest who maintains the shrine of local deity Veeran, though most of the villagers are completely indifferent.  Selvi, meanwhile, is about to enter an arranged marriage with an older man who doubles as comic relief (Muruganandum), though her family are fine with her hanging out with Kumaran as long as she's home to perform the necessary rituals.

The village is part of an experimental project by the JACL Corporation to produce power by firing lasers through a glass tube, but the planned route runs right through Veeran's shrine, and the priest absolutely refuses to let it be torn down. It's a technology that was designed to be used in rural areas, because if the tube loses containment it could lead to an explosion that wipes out all life along the entire line.  That's why Kumaran is here; he's been having visions of the village wiped out in a blue mushroom cloud.

It's not just the visions, though.  The lightning strike gave Kumaran a suite of low key super powers.  He can throw lightning bolts that are only powerful enough to knock people around rather than stop their hearts, control minds for ninety seconds at a time (though overuse of this ability hurts him and can lead to unconsciousness), and also has the uncanny power to befriend horses.  For reasons.  It's probably an extension of the mind control.

Thanks to his visions, Kumaran knows that JACL is up to something evil, so his plan is to disguise himself as the god Veeran in order to thwart them.  JACL doesn't appreciate the interference, and corporate bully Dhruv (R. Badree) to deal with him, later followed by Dhruv's brother Sarath (Vinay Rai), an evil scientist with a specialized poison that makes people explode within two minutes.  

Kumaran-as-Veeran is a superhero, but he's no Superman.  he's got a loosely thematic suite of abilities with some tight limits; the lightning can knock people around but isn't going to end the fight immediately, his mind control doesn't last long and can hurt him, he needs to be able to snap use any of his powers, and he has to wear a copper bracelet given to him by Sakkarai's grandfather or he'll lose control of his powers.  And all of those limitations factor into the plot.  The scope of Veeran is smaller than a lot of superhero movies.

But while the scope is smaller, the stakes are still high.  Sure, Veeran is fighting to protect one village, but the village is full of people, and they matter.  The restricted setting means that we get to meet most of them and see that they matter.  The plot doesn't have to involve collapsing multiverses to be meaningful.

Veeran is not a perfect superhero movie; I don't think we ever find out exactly what the evil plot is, and there's a lot of comic relief here that just doesn't translate well.  Still, the leads are engaging, the villains are definitely villainous, and the hero has to struggle to save the day, with a lot of help from his horse.  It's refreshingly grounded without trying to be gritty.

(An evil power company called JACL and run by a merciless scientist?  That's got to be a stealth Shaktimaan reference, right?  It's not just me?)