I am not a SRK fan and when my better half bought a pair of tickets for Chak De I reluctantly agreed to accompany her for the sake of marital bliss. What a surprise! For once I found that Indian cinema has matured fully and can give cinemas made elsewhere a run for their money. As a teacher of sorts I can well understand that adversity is the best ustad that a person can have and the character Kabir Khan does full justice to the concept of the fallen gladiator. And what a resurrection.
He makes a team out of, shall I say, desperate elements, moulds them into a perfect Corpus and then the battle begins. It is a battle fought at various levels; we are all aware about personal jealousies, the inter State one upmanship, the officer’s contumely, and the myriad pricks of daily life. It is a resounding saga of existence and how a noble cause is achieved by sheer dint of hard work. There is no overacting that the ealier SRK was guilty of, no improbable situations, no recourse to deus ex machina and no dancing around the bush. The viewer’s adrenaline shoots up evey now and again as when we watch in amazement a Caucasian raising the Tricolour in Australia and the flag is focused majestically swaying in the air.
When a girl refuses to marry her lover we realise that these girls cannot be stereotyped as the common Indian women, for the majority of whom a marriage is the end of the road. Women’s empowerment is depicted very subtly but the message does sink in. I wish each and every Indian sees this movie.