I Heart Hockeybees

Rating: 7/10 (15 August 2007)

With Chak De India, director Shimit Amin has made a paint-by-numbers sports film, hitting every predictable checkpoint as it races along. And that's a compliment to what is easily the best Hindi film of the year so far, because we go to sports-flicks for predictability, to see Bhuvan's XI kick Brit ass, to see The Replacements come from behind. This time out, it's Shah Rukh Khan's Gordon Bombay trying to coach a bunch of ragtag Mighty Desi Ducks to self-belief, glory, and a cabinet full of silver. Seven years after a blunder stopped his career cold in its tracks, hockey hero-gone-zero Kabir Khan is raring to get back onto the hockey field. He'll do whatever it takes, even if it means taking a gig coaching the Indian Women's Hockey team. He's up against history and a hockey association whose step-motherly apathy towards the team makes Cinderella's folks look like Norman Rockwell creations. And then there's the actual team, the sort of bunch polite people would call a "work in progress" and most people in the movie call a "Rakshas Sena." They come from all over India (of course), and they come carrying some stereotypical cultural baggage. The North-Eastern girls, for example, are hooted at everywhere they go because, you know, they're *supposed* to be easy. Take a bow writer Jaideep Sahni because the beauty of it is, of course, the fact that this automatically gives each character an arc, a responsibility even, to take cheerful digs at these stereotypes and hypocrisy (watch for a rousing bar-brawl brought on as a result of some serious stereotyping). But none of these characters would have mattered without the women playing them; they're a casting marvel, a dirty dozen with more spark, sass and oomph than a truckload of Spice Girls on crack. They're an absolute joy to watch, carrying this movie effortlessly. As is the case with any team movie, you warm up to some of the ensemble, and others leave you cold. Vidya Malvade holds her own as goalie/captain/home-maker Vidya and Segarika Ghatge (playing arrogant striker Preeti Sabharwal) seems to have the male vote (mine included maybe). Shah Rukh Khan is excellent here, surprisingly restrained and resisting the urge to SRK it up even when the opportunity presents itself. He's good, but even he can only stand around and watch as Chitrashi Rawat, playing Jersey #1, Komal Chautala steals the ball out from under him, shoots and sccccoorrrrressssss. She's pint-sized dynamite, the sort of person I wouldn't want to be on the bad side of, on the field or off it. Speaking of the field, hats off to director Amin for sticking with the game throughout the film, and doing it well. He and his cinematography team find coherence in the chaos, their camera gliding through the mess of feet and sticks to give us a sports film that looks like a sports film instead of looking like, well, Awwal Number. This is his second film (his first was slow-burn cop thriller Ab Tak Chappan), and as far as I'm concerned, he's one of the best Bollywood's got. Chak De India is masala-pop patriotism done right, and I'm twice as glad that it focuses on hockey and not cricket. Hockey is something Indian men used to be good at. Pity then that today, the only ones who can get it right in this country are a bunch of fictitious, cinematic women.