Chak De! India

Yes, folks, I finally watched a Shah Rukh Khan movie on the very first weekend! It was none other than the hockey-match fervour of Chak De! India.

The movie is loosely based on reality of an Indian hockey player who is accused of being a traitor. The player then comes back as the coach of the India team to lead it to greater glory and redeem himself of the black mark on his career. (See Wikipedia)

One thing that stood out in the movie was the focus. There was no emotional melodrama and no unnecessary dialogues on varied topics. The movie is about hockey and sticks to it. Considering that the movie is from Yash Raj films, this was quite amazing! There was no regular naach-gaana, US Flag based dance sequence, heroine-hero rain sequence - nothing! There was just the hockey matches, hockey match strategy and hockey match training.

Various other points too were raised in the movie but, it was played down and subtle enough so as not to bore the viewer. The typical bharatiya naari - holding belan is renounced against a self-confident, self-esteem filled world-beating player.

The constant bickering and Hindi-Punjabi-Tamil-Telugu divide is also nicely highlighted. The scene where the Manipur and Mizoram girls are welcomed as mehmaan was amusing and at the same time, a bit sad. In the nation where they are citizens, people literally treat them as aliens! Come to think of it. As an Indian, I can clearly tell you which areas in UK are filled with desi janata, Indian restaurant and good places to visit. How many of us can claim to say the same about the north-east states? Or for that matter, apart from weather forecast, how many of us even care of the north-east? Hmm.. Point to mull over.

The highlight of the movie was the coach, Mr Shah Rukh Khan. For a change, he's not into his 'k-k-k-' mode of heroine haunting or love triangulation. This time, he's focused and he wants to redeem his loss. Nothing more, nothing less. He's played the role with a good deal of subtlety and control. There are a few areas where he is almost on the verge of breaking into his formula dialogue delivery mode but, the director has restrained him to deliver a good performance. Good job Mr Director.

The matches in Australian World Cup are quite well shot and believable. The only issues is that the movie tries to go through each match of the league and quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals that it seems to lack some depth. One area where the Bollywood catches up is the last minute pep-talk for the last match. The coach declares that "I'll not tell you what to play. You will go out and know what to play". And yet, he's there on the scene communicating with the goal-keeper via telepathy. This looks a bit out of ordinary - yet not all that incredible, considering we have Rajini movies running on the other screens... :)

One area where the movie failed is in showing the technical brilliance of the coach. He's shown as a man on mission and motivation. Yet, his skill as a hockey player is not really explored. The coach is shown playing with cups and saucers, etc. yet, never is he really shown explaining the strategy and game to his players. The players are shown as simple students agreeing to whatever "Coach Sir" says. This part somehow leaves you a bit saddened since you come out without having learnt anything much about hockey.

The other area which I felt a bit unnecessary was the cricket bashing. No matter what, every country is mad about one men's game. It's football, baseball, soccer or cricket for most nations. No matter what, the sheer power, speed, raw animalistic team hunting spirit is laid bare in these games and it commands a viewership that's not surpassed by any other games. Needlessly cavilling about the lack of support, or the "hockey mein chakke nahin hote" type of dialogues are not really needed. In a country separated by so many divisions, cricket is literally the only unifying factor. Let's not to try and destroy that!

Despite all this, I'd say it's a movie worth watching. The humour in various languages, the mixture of literally unmixable team mates and the wide-eyed girls in Austrailia make up for the lack in other areas.

So go on. Say Chak De! And start watching.