Very enjoyable movie with an excellent ensemble cast

Rating: 8/10 (9 August 2007)

I have always loved good melodramatic underdog sports movies such as Remember the Titans,Invincible etc and now we have the bollywood version with Chak De India.
Hats off to the production team and the director for coming out with a fresh and very high quality product with excellently filmed hockey scenes that are quite realistic. I loved the wonderful cast of unknown girls who make up the Indian national women's hockey team. All of them had a part to play and they played them beautifully while executing some rigorous hockey action. They were excellent and gave wonderfully natural performances that should shame some of the already established actresses. Special mention should be given to the actress playing Bindya Naik. My favourite was the actress who played the spirited but pint sized forward from Haryana, she was really cute and funny in a tomboyish sort of way.
Shahrukh Khan was excellent in this movie..... his best performance since Swades in my opinion as he played against type. Had some wonderful moments with the girls and drew lots of cheers and laughs from the audience. If the movie succeeds then a lot of the credit has to go the King khan's crowd pulling power.
If this film succeeds and I sincerely hope it does, I think Amin (director) and Yashraj films are going to start a whole new trend a la DDLJ with a whole slew of sports related movies coming from Bollywood. I am sure cricket will be next on the agenda.
A thoroughly enjoyable ride....go watch it.
P.S. - some interesting trailers shown as well Laga Chunari Main Daag, Aaja Nachle and Goal (the Indian bend it like beckham maybe?)