Chak De India did not pull in the
crowds that Shah Rukh movies usually
do. The cinema hall was not half as
full as we had expected. The loud,
boisterous crowds were missing. People
looked as if they had been dragged by
friends and relatives to watch this
movie, not for the movie, but for Shah
Rukh Khan. Frankly, I had no
expectations, just curiosity. And I am
glad I gave in to it.
Shah Rukh Khan is Kabir Khan, a former
National Hockey player, who fell from
grace after he failed to convert a
penalty stroke into a goal against a
match with Pakistan. He is labelled a
traitor, chucked out from the team,
and is forced to leave his
neighborhood where he grew up. All of
this is pure Hindi cinema - loud
allegations, morose-looking neighbors,
little children who barely know su-su
from po-tty demanding to see the 'gaddar,
exaggerated expressions" and all that.
All of this unnecessary action made us
groan and clench our teeth. But these
are only the first 10 minutes or so.
Cut to present (7 years later), the
fallen coach gets an opportunity to
redeem himself in the form of the
Commonwealth Games being held in
Australia. The Hockey Board (headed by
the eternal babu Anjan Shrivastava,
perfectly executed) is reluctantly
looking for a coach for the Woman's
Hockey Team. After making a few jabs
about the poor team, and how women
should resort to chakla belan and not
hockey, the board reluctantly hires a
cocky Khan as a joke. This is also the
time in the movie when you notice the
easygoing, conversational flow in the
script.
The team members are introduced to us
(a brief, crisp, and funny take) one
by one. There is Balbir Kaur (Tanya
Abrol), the hefty, loud, always-angry
girl from Punjab, Komal Chautala (Chitrashi
Raut), delightfully brash, and very
haryanvi, Soimoi Kerketa ( Nisha
Nair), the shy girl from Jharkhand,
Preeti Sabharwal (Sagarika Ghatge),
the pretty captain from Chandigarh,
Bindiya Naik (Shilpa Shukla), the
arrogant senior player from
Maharashtra, to name a few of the main
characters. These intros are shot very
well, and define the characters once
and for all. You just know what is
coming next. Yes, that makes it
predictable, but doesn't take away the
fun.
The team is assembled, and they must
go through a rigorous training. They
are made to run ten miles at 5 am and
practice hockey with a vengence. The
coach is, of course, hard-as-nails,
and will not give any concession
whatsoever. The girls love to hate
him, but are unsure about that. A lot
of bitching, a couple of cat fights,
and attitude-throwing, they eventually
come together, and work harder.
Now that the team is raring to go, the
Hockey Board pulls out, in true babu
style. The sponsors are not willing to
back up the Women's team, and the
girls must beat the boys team, to
ensure a sponsorship. That does not
happen, but the board has to give in,
and the girls are off to Australia.
Again, the scenes between the board
and Khan are not overplayed, and done
very subtly. Anjan Shrivastava as the
chairman is convincingly official and
sleazy. Also, the script shied away
from the usual government melodrama,
and is kept nice and crisp. Finally,
when the girls arrive in Australia,
they are quite taken aback by the
facilities provided to their foreign
counterparts. The expression on the
girls faces are genuine, amusing, and
sometimes touching. This is where the
interval happens, and we haven't
encountered anyone breaking into a
song and dance routine yet.
The team loses to seven-time World
champions Austrians by 0-7. The girls
are demoralized, broken, and ready to
pack their bags. The emotions are
captured wonderfully -- the girls look
suitably broken, tired, demoralized,
and embarrassed. The next fifteen
minutes have the most crisply shot
scenes I have seen in any Indian
sports movie. With a little push from
the coach, the girls climb up the
charts, beating any team which comes
their way, and end up being in the
finals. Fast camera movements, no lag
between the scenes, and superb
editing. It all happens so seamlessly
that you don't feel cheated, because
none of the scenes end abruptly.
Yes, the girls do win the World Cup.
We all knew it from the beginning, yet
we all were waiting for that one final
nail-biting-tense moment where the
girls would be about to lose, and one
singular hand-of-god action would save
them. Yes, it was predictable, but the
build-up to that one moment is so well
done, that you can't help and let out
a clap or two.
Except for a coupla girls, most of the
cast are first-time actors, and each
one is believable. The film is full of
joyful moments; the girls beating the
crap out of a bunch of Delhi brats in
a mall, the extremely brash and crass
Komal Chautala from Haryana who lets
out a mouthful of choicest swear words
at any given moment, Balbir Kaur, with
her hulk-like stance, always looking
for a fight--in the mall scene, she
slaps the guy so hard, he actually
tumbles out of the balcony onto a car;
the slap is REAL), the ever-arrogant
Bindiya Naik with a permanent smirk on
her face, the coach telling the girls
to go all-out on a particularly
violent team, and so on.
Each one of these girls, deserves an
award. So do the scriptwriter, casting
director, camera people, and the
director. Yes, there were one
paticular scene when Khan goes back to
his place, and people crowd around in
(visibly poor) amazement, he handing a
kid his hockey stick and the kid in
turn shouting Chak De! which should
not have been there, but I suspect the
director put them there so as to bring
a conclusion to Khan's character.
Thankfully, it stays away from the
'nationalistic' feel, and concentrates
more on the sport. Also, the movie
takes subtle and effective pot-shots
at cricket, and the general feeling
towards Indian players in a foreign
country. Chak De India does, however,
fail to mention that Hockey is THE
National game of India.
The music is surprisingly Un-YashRaj.
It's young and peppy, though why they
inserted a little rap every now and
then in the title track (Chak de
India!) is beyond me. All the songs
and sounds in the movie are used as
the background score, and its a relief
to see Shah Rukh NOT singing any of
them for moral boosting.
Vidya Malvade is pretty, with a lot of
character, and carries herself well.
Now all she needs is the Chak de
sequels, since she definitely will not
fit in the
let's-run-around-the-tree-mould. So,
she might come in a movie or two
before she gets married to some gora
and starts living in Detroit or such.
Sagarika Ghatge is bahu-pretty, and
extremely fair, and we all shall see
her soon on the telly. Khan as Kabir
is convincing at times, but does
succumb to the Shah-Rukh-school-of-acting
every now and then. You can see a bit
of Lee Ermey from Full Metal Jacket
there, though not so harsh, and
definitely not so forceful. He hams
through some of his lines, the
mannerisms creep in, but you can see
the guy is trying. He does not exactly
repeat the studied self-restrain like
he did in Swades but comes close.
Overall, Chak De is a good movie,
eminently watchable and enjoyable for
a couple of times, even for sport
haters like me. I would give this
movie a 8 out of a 10, simply for the
casting, and the script.
