To begin with, I am no Shah Rukh Fan, but for the hype this movie created that prompted me to watch this film and I was earnestly praying to change my opinion for once. so with these idea I went in to watch this film but i was sadly disappointed, and here are my reasons:
Muslim players loyalty angle, I am a hockey fan since early 70s when india used to do quite well in hockey. Our most of leading players used to be Muslim like Zafar Iqbal, Aslam Sher Khan, Md. Shaheed so the point I want to make is fans are unforgiving wether its Sachin or any muslim player but puting a muslim angle is little cheap because its such an obvious gimmick.
Women hockey team getting raw deal: no doubt about it that other then Mans Cricket team rest of indian sports persons gets a raw deal, but to make it so obvious is again a gimmick. please see that indian female sportspersons go regularly to international events even in such less popular sports such as weightlifting(we even got an olympic medal), boxing, archary and shooting. so the argument between the selection committee and the sports official was once again too stereotyped.
Team Building: I wish a little more subtle approach would have been better. Patriotism evokes strong response thats why its used so ofter by the politicians( remember, patriotism is the last refuse of the scoundrels) so team building in a sports team takes many other hues then what has been treated in the movies at a superficial level
since it was a sports film and hockey as a sports is one of the most colourful sports with astroturf in the back ground. this film could have been more visually attractive, most of the time the camera was too close cropped so the beauty of hockey as a sports was lost.
Match between Male and female hockey team is again too childish, I dont think at national levels, women teams are sent only if they beat the male teams and dialogues before the match about womens skills, power and equality were again too laced with killing predictably.
to sum up, this movies is a break from regular mushy sweet nothing with shah rukh playing a better role then the syrupy romantic roles. for once shah rukh has not resort to his usual hamming and underplayed the role. but I feel though the director took a break from the run of the mill films but overall it remained a highly amaturish stuff with predictable noise about, muslims getting raw deal, womens bias and nationalism.
please note that any mixture of above 3 ingridients is such a lethal combtination that it becomes impossible to renounce it as Chak de remained a very predictable, gimmick ridden film.