I must admit the initial teasers of Chak de India didn’t catch my fancy. One probable reason for this was that I’ve always associated Shah Rukh Khan with loud over-the-top animations that may have moved many a female movie-goer to tears but have always moved me out of the movie hall. The only SRK movie I liked was Swades because SRK was delightfully restrained al through the movie and gave full justice to the character that was, I concede, tailor-made for him. Therefore, though the concept of CDI sounded interesting to me, I suspected CDI would be a movie in the Main Hoon Na mould, portraying a superhuman SRK with expansive and superlative dialogues and minimal substance.
But the reviews that CDI received pushed me to the movie hall, and my suspicions were happily proved wrong. The movie is a lovely attempt to enthuse the average Indian with love & respect both for the country and its national sport. I have always been a supporter and follower of hockey, and have often thought & commented on the beleaguered state of the game has been pushed to. Cinema is a powerful medium to make a statement & I’m delighted to see that someone has had the thoughtfulness to bring Indian hockey into focus. On that count, full marks to Pradeep Sahni & Shamit Amin. Exquisite care has been taken to make the movie as realistic as possible, and it shows on screen. Ace hockey stalwart & hockey crusader Dhanraj Pillay and the goalkeeping coach of Team India, M.R.Negi, have trained the actors in the movie and that is why the game scenes look like they were footage from actual hockey games. The acclivity of the team’s performance in the movie has also been kept realistically punctuated with fallibility & fluctuation. They lose to the men’s hockey team but gain respect & acclaim from all & sundry for their guts, talent and spirit. That was, for me, a very special moment in the film. They also lose their opening WC fixture disastrously but come back to win the WC, so typical of our team performances in cricket & even hockey. The execution & cinematography of the penalty corners and the penalty shootout is amazingly life-like. The climax of the final match is also extremely nail-biting & realistic. Having briefly played hockey as a goalkeeper, I was glad to see that the goalkeeper is portrayed as the captain of the team & its eventual saviour and hero. Frictions between the team members for various reasons have also been treated with maturity & restraint. Last, but not the least, SRK, as a former national center-forward and an inspirational coach of the women’s hockey team, turns in a refreshing performance & is immensely convincing in his portrayal of Kabir Khan. One of his landmark performance this!
CDI is somewhat in the Lagaan mould due to the fact that it’s a sports based movie. But the similarities end there. While Lagaan cashed in on the country’s craze for cricket to weave a tale of grit, patriotism and triumph, CDI has attempted to bring back a forgotten game with a splendid past back into focus, seeking assistance from the buoyant patriotic spirits of the nation close to august 15, and probably from an X-factor arising out of the portrayal of eves hockey and not men’s hockey. The film has whipped up a sudden national interest in hockey and reportedly boosted hockey sales in the country. The nation has been forced to look beyond the glitz and glamour of cricket and cast more than a glance at the game that has given us as many as seven Olympic gold medals (compare it to the solitary cricket WC triumph and you’ll know the sheer gravity of this statistic). I had sadly mourned a decision elsewhere on my blog when Indian hockey had been unceremoniously pushed off the status of a priority sport by the India government. I hope the leaders would reconsider that decision now. CDI is an honest attempt to foment a new beginning and I sincerely hope it yields the desired results.
