Mr Average

Think you are an everyday man? What if your commonness is what makes you special? What happens when you discover that you are so average that the entire nation hangs on your every decision and even the President’s future depends on you?

Mr Average has the potential to be a great movie, yet halfway through it cops out. Jalil, a very average guy, wins a TV game for choosing correctly the most common answers and finds that his life took a turn for the unexpected. From an innocuous kindergarten teacher, Jalil discovers that he has a talent after all. A talent to make decisions that most people make and thus, becoming a guinea pig for new products in which he represents the average man’s response.

The interesting part of this is that he is being spied upon without his knowledge and his too-good-to-be-true girlfriend turned out to be a wannabe actress who is tasked to get the most sincere response out of him. It began with companies using Jalil as a testing ground for the majority of the nation and the seriousness of the situation reared its head when even the President’s election hangs on whatever Jalil has to say.

The problem ensues because Jalil could not care less about politics. All he cares about is being happy and making his girlfriend happy. His actress-girlfriend eventually could not stand the masquerade and spilled the beans on him before leaving him and went into hiding.

Jalil, sprung out from the incident unhurt and became a phenomenal success, employing the same method that was used on him to gain overnight success. From Mr Average, he became Mr Popular. However, as with all average shows, Jalil finds his success and wealth empty without someone to share with.

So what happens next? Yawn. Yes Mr Average-turned-Mr Popular seeks out the ex-actress-girlfriend and they got back together. But not before he performs a trick on the very people that got him to where he is.

So much more could have been said about this movie, but so much left unsaid. An entire movie about social satire could be made out of the premise. Yet the director fails to fully milk the movie for its worth. The perils of depending on one man to make decisions, the carelessness of the younger generation in politics, the invasiveness of the google box, the integrity and principles involved in milking money out of Mr Average and the transformation of a man in the face of success, are not adequaately explored and the viewer is left with the insipid and totally unbelievable bond between the two leads.

Come on, throwing oneself wholeheartedly into a role is one thing. But when that role requires one to really go all the way, including having sex with one that you have no feelings for, is that bordering on prostitution or what? Towards the end, the male and female inevitably get back together. Yet the premise for them to want to get back together is weak, except for the girl’s willingness to go back to Jalil because he is now rich and famous who happens to drive a flashy sports car?

However, this movie was not as ‘average’ as expected. The saving graces were the attempts, albeit failed ones, at making an intellectual movie out of it. A ‘can-watch’ date movie.