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Fairy tale with logic

Genre: Sports/Drama

TRIUMPH OF TEAMWORK: Chak De India.

When did we last make a solid ensemble film about sports — one that’s not about a few players saving the day but about the triumph of teamwork?

‘Chak De’ is that rare film where the hero watches from the stands and lets a bunch of ‘what’s-her-name-again’ girls do all the winning. Jaideep Sahni is surely one of the finest screenwriters of our times, probably the b est mainstream Hindi cinema has seen — ‘Company,’ ‘Bunty aur Babli,’ ‘Khosla Ka Ghosla’ and now, ‘Chak De’!

Sahni’s other masterstroke is to pitch it to a nuanced director who likes to work with the subtlety needed to make the story on the triumph of the underdogs realistic, especially since this is based on a real life hero Mir Ranjan Negi.

The sporting action is riveting, like any good game of ball. As the film begins, we are right in the middle of the climax of an India-Pakistan Hockey World Cup final. Khan takes the penalty corner. In a typical Johar/Chopra film, the slow-mo that follows the dramatic tension-building shots would’ve introduced us to the triumphant demi-God hero.

But here, what we see is a hero fall and fail. Without the opposition’s cheating or foul play. ‘Chak De’ is not just a commentary on the way sport is run in the country, it also gets deep into the psyche of the typical Indian player, divided from his/her team by race, religion or language, playing for the self, doing what it takes to survive, biding time at training camps and complaining about the coach.

At another level, ‘Chak De’ is about women’s liberation. It is one of the best feminist films of our times. Next, the girls themselves are the closest we’ve seen to a representation of India in any sports movie we’ve seen. They are not 16 pretty young things. The casting is first-rate. The rawness in the performances actually makes you forget these are actors.

Though we begin by warming up to the ethnic/race differences among the players, soon enough, Amin skirts their inter-racial conflicts behind the uniform, the great leveller.

It is as authentic as it gets in a sports film: multiple-camera set-ups, long-continuous shots of the field and action, racy narration, crisp training montage sequences, motivational speeches and a plausible road map for the underdogs to emerge victorious.

It’s a fairy-tale told with utmost conviction, realism and logic. Shah Rukh Khan, the star, is a delight to watch. As a performer here, he is even better. Watch him savour his moment of triumph quietly, standing alone and watching his team from far away.

There’s just one thing that stops this film-of-the-year from becoming a classic — the music. Salim Sulaiman’s music is functional and it works at a very ho-hum level. The title song is hummable too. With a more apt score it would have been quite a match and an award-winning team!

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