A great watch

Rating: 8/10 (25 December 2007)

What happens when the reigning actor in India joins a small banner film about sports, and not just any sport but specifically hockey. Not India's cup of tea, you might think, but surprising enough it works ! Shahrukh Khan is Kabir Khan, a washed out center forward of the former great Indian hockey squad. After a mishap in the world-cup final, where he misses a penalty-shot and gets blamed by the media for betraying his country, he makes a comeback. But as a coach not as a player and his goal is, to lead the women of the national Indian hockey squad to their first world-cup. As you can guess coach Kabir faces his lot of troubles; the hockey board who doesn't approve, the girls who wouldn't play under him. At first his goal seems not only far fetched but impossible at that. And what happens next is... magic. Not the best sports movie I have seen in my life, but Chak de is surely the most inspiring one and most surprisingly it comes out the land of love, love and love India. India is infamous for it's bad traffic, high pollution and romantic movies, so Chak de India comes as a breath of fresh air in the land where sports is a untampered subject. Don't get me wrong it shows, the script is not an original one, it's not the best written movie I've seen, the dialogues just don't come across naturally. The movie utilises before seen underplays, like the rivalry in the team between the two main strikers, the complete impossible goal, the failure of the main character (Kabir), ... The acting isn't the best piece of acting I've seen in a while, it's quite the contrary, this movie has a list of newcomers and a seasoned veteran to guide them, Shahrukh plays his role convincingly but yet he is not the star, for me this is Chitrashi Rawat who plays Komal, the tiny striker I think this girl has played her role to a "T" and together with Shilpa Shukla who plays Bindia Naik they keep their ground pretty well against King Khan. But the rest of the cast is just not up to the task and this shows. But enough of the negatives lets get to the points where this movie just stands out let's begin with the overall feel, because of the way the hockey matches are shot the movie lifts up 10 notches, the other is the perfect use of background music in comparison with slick editing, I think at this point I think the movie is easily comparable to Hollywood 'A-listers'. You know what's gonna happen but still because of the sheer craftsmanship the movie pulls you to the edge of the seat and just for that I give Chak De India 4 stars out of 5. If you're in need of something else than that sobby bollywood romance, go watch this and feel proud to be an Indian. Chak De India!!!