Good underdog sports film by Bollywood standards

Rating: 8/10 (10 September 2007)

There is a genre of films about the sports underdog. The list of those films is long, and mostly originate in Hollywood, but I guess it's time someone took a whack at it here. And they do.
The story: The final of the men's hockey world cup between India and Pakistan. Pakistan is leading by one goal with just seconds left to play, when India gets a penalty stroke. Kabir Khan (Shah Rukh Khan, in his first on-screen portrayal of a Muslim character), the Indian captain, decides to take the stroke himself. And fluffs it, losing the match in the process. As a Pakistani player, in a moment of camaraderie, hugs him in consolation, and the photo of him doing this is splashed all across the Indian papers calling him a traitor and worse. He is finally forced even to move out of his own house while a man scribbles "Gaddar" ("Traitor") on the wall in charcoal. Cut to seven years later, when a women's hockey team is being put together. There is just one applicant for the job that no one wants, that of the coach of a team that is bound to lose.Kabir Khan. By default, he gets the job. What he gets is a team of scrapings from the bottom of the barrel, from all corners of the country,a team of no-hopers, misfits, egotists and drama queens. Now of course except for "Rocky" the underdog films always end with the victory of the underdog against all odds. So I knew what was coming; what I wanted to see was how they went about presenting it. The beginning is a disaster. The girls, on the field, are more intent on hitting out at each other than playing, and Khan is forced to bench several of them till they apologise to each other. In the end the anger against his training methods is so great that they sign a petition against him. It looks as if all's over for the team, till the player's suddenly and spectacularly bond at a MacDonald's when a group of louts tries to harass them. They beat the living hell out of those men. Maybe not realistic, but entertaining all the same. Meanwhile, the national selectors are fast losing interest in the team and are about to decide against sending it to the World Cup. Khan makes a desperate plea: he will have the girls play the national men's team. If they at least draw, they will go to the World Cup. Despite losing narrowly, the team is so impressive the entire men's team and the spectators salute the girls and the selectors are forced to let them go to the World Cup in Australia after all. As usual in this type of film, they lose heavily in the first match (against Australia) before Kabir Khan, with his coaching and his pep talks, motivates them to claw their way back, till they finally reach the final, gathering sponsors and new kit on the way. And, of course, in the final, meeting Australia again, they win - as you knew all along. And with the world cup in hand, they return to flowers and Kabir Khan returns to his old home, mother and all, in an absurdly maudlin scene. There is much more to it, of course. There is the time when the girls are being registered at the hockey camp, the man at the desk has never heard of places like Mizoram and thinks Tamil and Telugu people are the same. There is the moment when Kabir Khan tells super-egotist Bindya Naik (the eminently kissable Shilpa Shukla) "There is room for just one bully in this team, and that's me". There are the repeated and very enjoyable digs at that national obsession and fifth-rated pseudo-sport, cricket. There are the girls goggling at the training facilities the Australians enjoy. There is Kabir Khan fingering his old silver medal and seeking personal vindication from a win. There is the delicious touch of irony when the team returns  the players are seen bargaining for the autorickshaw fare, as before. The score is one jarring point  the music is loud and intrusive and more often than not unnecessary. At least there is no song and dance. Also, while the on-field hockey action is beautifully shot and excellently portrayed, there is a yammering commentary in Hindi that is all but unendurable. I'm giving this film 8, but really it deserves 8.5. I'm deducting a full point for the awful commentary and for the musical score. Another point goes for that ridiculous last scene, where people still  after all these years  remember the old rancour, albeit this time to wash it away; Kabir Khan arrives pushing the same old scooter, and his mother returns too, looking not a day older. And the charcoal "traitor" is still there to be crossed out  after seven years. Of course you'll understand that my rating is based on comparison to other Hindi films. Compared to Hollywood sports films it scores 4 out of 10. But the Bollywood standard is so low that anything better than mediocre makes one feel absurdly grateful. Kabir Khan's story, incidentally, is based on the real life story of Mir Ranjan Negi, Indian goalkeeper in the hockey final of the 1982 Asian Games against Pakistan in which India lost 7-1. Negi was hounded for years  and he ultimately returned as women's team coach. He was also technical adviser for this film. Chak De! also deserves praise for not shying away from a brutal truth in India  the fact that an Indian Muslim is always forced to keep proving himself an Indian, the fact that he is not even allowed to make an honest mistake on the sports field without suspicion. This should ideally be studied in depth in another movie. Chak De! is a sports film; one can't ask too much from it. A superb effort, still.