A warm welcome to India’s first Chick-Flick. The big difference is that this film that has 16 odd chicks is not about frills, ball gowns and kisses under mistletoes. Yes, it is about cat fights, bitching, egos, crushes, ambitions and relationships and in the end of it all, it is also about hockey.
But it does not start there. The special story and character of each of the 16 speak for a million!!Starring Shahrukh Khan as the coach of the 16-member Women’s National Hockey Team, he could have easily gobbled up all the praise for Chak De India . But all the girls stand their own and give equally competent performances, without which the film would have just collapsed.
Each one has come from a diverse part of India and their transformation from the local champion to that of international is the tale Chak De narrates.Based on goal-keeper Negi who was accused of charges in the 1982 Asian games, this story by Jaideep Sahni would have been very ordinary, unless he himself did not heighten it by his charged screenplay and gritty dialogue.
Sharp editing by Amitabh Shukla and a pulsating music score by Salim Suleiman, transform its 2hour-something length into a stimulating and edge-of-the-seat entertainer, made intelligently by director Shimit Amin. The theatre was abuzz with whistles and cheering for the witty dialogues, performances and thrilling matches!
The latter part of the second half mainly consists of a series of matches and they refuse to get monotonous!!..They just create a roar in the theatre as if it were actually a stadium!Some sequences make a mark, especially the one where the whole bunch of girls smash the guys who try to tease them. It is such a stirrer that I am sure all girls watching would really want to go and join. The training sessions, motivating speeches, and the final victory of course are goose-bump moments.
Yes, I am a Shahrukh Khan fan, but keeping that aside, this time his trademark frown encases a sharp gaze which speaks a million words of grit, determination and ambition, without which this movie would have definitely lacked something. Undoubtedly and quite unanimously, his finest and most restrained performance till date, in which you forget he is Shahrukh Khan and feel like whistling at Kabir Khan- the coach!
The most intelligently made film in recent times, with superior technical backing and performances that are equally gripping as heart-warming, Chak De belongs to the 16 girls, who want to answer every doubt anyone has in this country about their capacities as sports people having an international edge.
They are focussed on banishing all these doubts and questions and answer them in one smash that is Chak De India.One thought that strongly lingers long after the movie is...Why not have all-girls shows??!!!....Its through and through girl-power, only this time there are no dainty damsels in distress, nor Fabindia clad iron-women, these are real women who have one passion and sky-high ambitions and grit.
Gender no bar, everyone cheers for them unanimously through its running length and just wonders how fast the intermission has arrived. And credit for such an engaging film, cannot be boasted by way too many.A very, very engaging and entertaining watch!!!