Let me start with a salute to the “amazing sportsman” Paan Singh Tomar.
The unfortunate sports legend who lost the race of life because of our rotten system.
I don’t justify his deeds as a dacoit who took the law in his own hand and met the same end as many other dacoits in chambal.
The first murder he committed was of his own. The sportsman and champion. The day A sportsman died, a dacoit took birth to die again. The movie also highlights the lack of facilities even in Indian Army where Pan Singh had to wear sneakers directly on the day of race for the first time.
Coming to the movie, I would say “ Hats off” to Irfaan, Tigmanshu for this amazing piece of work. Having worked with Shekhar kapoor, one can clearly see his influence in Paan Singh Tomar. Settings, cast, Dialogues, language and even the sepia / deep yellow, everything has some influence of Bandit Queen.
The story starts with the innocent man gets in to army and gets in to sports just because he doesn’t like the fixed quota for jawaans. Story progresses with many twists and turns and incidences which force him to become Daku Paan Singh Tomar.
A flawless piece of work in terms of Direction, camera work, cinematography, editing and sound. The entire movie feels real and makes you a part of it. There is no song in the movie which breaks the pace of the movie. Only song sung by Kailash is good and goes well with the scenes and story.
The focus is on how non cricket sports get completely neglected and those who won gold or silver medals in world’s most prestigious sports event Olympics are often completely broke and forgotten. The end of the movie leaves you with a heavy hart and the list of those champions who died penniless ( in the end of the movie ) makes you feel that the government and system only is responsible for the birth of dacoits like Paan Singh or Foolan Devi.
The pace of the entire movie is good. You don’t feel it’s dragging at any point. The start is well shot and the entire movie is beautifully balanced between flashback and present. The Interview of Paan Singh scene was extremely interesting.
Mahie was good and the “coach” scene too was very real. The sequence where Paan singh sends his kids to buy “Lemonchoos” so he gets time with his wife was good.
The performances of Pan Sinhh’s brother, Police inspector, Colonel, coach, informer and the journalist are good.
Some comic scenes like Interview, Ice cream, Jawans dining, Lemanchoos, Picture clicked with Japanese female fan and the kidnap are too good.
Some other impressive scenes were Paan Singh Winning the race, Killing of his brother,
Paan Singh training his gang, the Police station scene and the last scene of Pan Singh where he announces “Race shuru ki hai to finish line tah jaana hi hai.
I give full marks to the movie and everyone who has been a part of it. I just read Faridoon’s review and I completely agree with him that Irfan doesn’t deserve anything less than the Oscar. It’s Completely Irfan’s movie and he has given yet another milestone performance.
I highly recommend this movie to everyone as finally there is a good movie after a long time.
Just don’t miss it.