Archive for the ‘Sports’ Category
Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal: Disappointing
On December 09, 2007 in Action, Bollywood, Culture, Discriminatory, Masala, Movie, Patriotic, Sports, Video, West
Quite a few of you would have seen ‘Chak De’ and been impressed with the overall tone of the movie, the way that a coach tries to overcome his history and blend a team together inspite of their individual differences, egos, and ambitions. And the result is gripping, with a good dose of patriotism possible. Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal seems to suffer on this count. The movie, even though set in the United Kingdom, tries the same logic with a disparate team of people, hard up, trying to make a last ditch attempt to pull themselves up and win a championship on which their team depends. However, even though I liked the thought of the movie itself, given that there did not seem to be much of a market for movies that explored the sports theme without much of a romance, villains, and other commercial aspects. After all, how often do you get to see a movie looking at South Asians based in London, and with no reference to going back to India, or with a romance, but purely based on the life of people in that location ?
Chak De India: Good performance by Shahrukh Khan
On September 11, 2007 in Action, Bollywood, Classic, Competition, Movie, Patriotic, Sports, Talent
The last movie of Shahrukh Khan before this that I knew about was ‘Kabhi Alvida Na Kahna’, and I did not watch it. Given that it was a Karan Johar movie, it was pretty unlikely that I would have considered the movie any different from the regular emotion drama; and even though the movie was somewhat different from his usual theme, covering the topic of marital and extra-marital relationships, I could not force myself to see it.
So it was with some trepidation that I went ahead to watch Chak De India; I had already heard that it was a good movie, but most people who had seen it had told me that it was essentially about hockey and the patriotism inherent in the country winning a major tournament, and there was the fear that it would turn out to be a movie steeped in patriotism, with players being urged to play for country and honour, and getting the feel-good feeling. It was all this to some extent, but in a vastly well scripted way, something that cheered you up. And frankly, I did not expect either Yash Raj Films or Aditya Chopra to make a movie that did not have a single decent song, or a romantic liasion, and I was proved wrong.
Chak De succeeds at many levels, it takes a person with all his reasons for doing what he is doing and does not try to air-brush those reasons or cloak them under a sentimental way. It also tries to show the reality of the game and conditions, when compared against the immense money involved in something called cricket that is a national obsession. It also shows our current administrators of sports and how they are singularly unfit to run something like this, it is only when you get dedicated people to run things that you get results.
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