Chak De India!

Friday evening and no plans in mind. My friend calls and asks "Chak De India dekhne chalen kya?". I replied "Arey chal dekhte hain, kuch aur plan tha bhi nahin".

I am glad I watched the movie. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and having been part of sports teams for my school, I could relate to a lot of stuff that was depicted in the movie. The movie had no melodrama, no unnecessary songs, nothing too dramatic and no love story / comedy running in parallel. It was focussed on the subject at hand and that was - Hockey. To me, this movie is proof of Bollywood maturing and coming up with good movies and not mere box office trash!!!!!

Without providing spoilers, the movie had a very realistic reflection of how sport is administered in India, the societal stereotypes that sports persons (women especially) have to go through and also the politics that run down to the lowest levels possible. The movie also had a strong message for those people who think Cricket is the be all and end all of sport.

The acting in the movie was quite good, though SRK clearly shows that he does not know how to play hockey. The team members were very cleverly cast and the manner in which they played their parts was good. Watch out for the goal keeper and the star striker - they were the cute ones :D:D A few friends who hadnt watched the movie were surprised when I told them that there were very few songs and no heroine in the movie - an SRK movie!!!!.

I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and the fact that the story was inspired from a real life experience helped in keeping the story very real. The latter parts of the movie were shot in Melbourne and I could go - Thats MSAC, hey thats the Bolte bridge, hey thats the Grand Hyatt.............

The one area where a little more effort could have been put in is the technicalities in directing the game. A little more research would have helped. The commentary on the matches, in particular, was bad and had some glaring errors in them. But then, in all, it was a wonderful movie. The movie featured the trailer of another movie titled Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal!!!! which is about a soccer team of Indians in the UK. Cant wait for that!!!!!