Finally a great sports movie from India ... really enjoyed Chak De. SRK definitely seems to be continuing his Swades form here but the real person in form is Shimit Amin ... we"ve all seen different kinds of sports, mostly cricket, in so many different movies.
How many of us have not thought....lordd==...hero hoga yaar but has he never played cricket while growing up??? - the way stars have batted or bowled or dribbled on screen before has been pathetic ...at least I haven"t seen a movie in which the sport itself was as well depicted as in Chak De.
The most part of the movie is shot on the hockey field ...there is an incredible amount of hockey in the movie...from the opening scene with the SRK character, Kabir Khan, playing, to all the hockey practice by the girls team coached by the Kabir Khan in India, to a challenge match with the boys" team, to the World Cup in Australia...
The movie is dominated by hard core hockey that has been brilliantly shot...with probably many shots of more than a minute with dribbling, tackling, defending and scoring without a cut with the girls actually playing REAL hockey and the camera following it brilliantly.
I almost said with the camera following it just like it does in actual matches, which is probably not the case here, becasue more than the moves themselves the director obviously emphasises actions and reactions of the players so its shot at a lot more lower level...almost ground level....while a lot of footage in real matches is from a much higher angle so the viewer can follow the game in its entirety...but still actual hockey, played by good hockey players, dominates....
All this not to mention all the very hard hitting messages like the need to seriously look at sports other than cricket in this country, the need for killer instinct and self belief in the players themselves as well as administration, and real factors like the relatively smaller and less athletic frame, stamina etc of Indias vis-a-vis Australians etc necessitating a hell of a lot more discipline and dedication if India needs to take on the world in sports....
Its just that the game of hockey itself dominated so much of the movie....almost to the point that I reacted sharply when one penalthy shootout jumped from the first stroke to a score of 3-2. I reacted with a "huh" initially and then realised its a movie and the director really wants to cut to the chase...for some moments like those I was dragged into a hockey tournament by Shimit...forgetting its a movie....
For that alone....B-R-A-V-O Shimit
Ab Tak Chappan pictures may have been made on sport but for me, this is the first really classy one.