chakde india - movie review

August 25th, 2007

CHAKDE INDIA - A Movie Review

Do you remember Phirki ( Lagaan) …. maybe a Tara Singh fighting against all of Pakistan ( Gadaar) ….how about Jerry McGuire ? Well , you might ask … WTF , whats the simmilarity …. the similarity being all the stories are about underdogs. That is what the theme of the story is about ….. underdogs , kabbir khan aka shahrukh a dinasouric underdog , indian team ( underdog) indian womens team ( underdogger ) indian womens hockey team ( dont be silly - underdoggest ) … beating all odds and making it to the world hockey championships final and beating Australia ( are you drunk ? ) ….. too many shocks in a row …… thats what made the story a hit !!!

You know what …. even if i was drunk , this movie is what you will need to awake the typical indian moviegoer wake up and see a movie proper , otherwise , he or she knows whats coming next …. the hero serenading the heroine around the trees , the hero or heroines family creating the typical problems about marriage and social outcast-ism , the villain totting guns or sending blackmailing letters … what the fuck was new ? CHAKDE INDIA has got substance , a story , which tells the story with a subdued hero and 16 surprising , underglamorous , heroines. I cant imagine the last Hindi movie i saw with even 4 heroines which didn’t have a single glamorous heroine …. i watched the movie from the first sequence till the last and i could not find a single sequence where there was a glamourized shot of any of the 16 , yet i have soent almost 2 hours today just reminiscing vindya naik , preity sabarwal, komal chautala and the gang.

Was it because of Yash Chopra ? Shimit Amin ( Director) , Shahrukh Khan ? ….. I feel no , it was because almost over 60% of the population who goes to watch a movie in the theatre considers himselg downtroden or a underdog in one way or the another …..and hence the movie attracted his senses very much ….

and moreover it is a blatant patriotic movie , which has played a huge role in the minds of India moviegoer , who have been waiting for a movie like this ( ever since the hype on Lagaan has died down ). Shahrukh , as kanak feels, has played a tremendous role in this movie playing as Kabir Khan , who motivated a extremely demoralized team to the point to being fiercely responsive. However he is NOT the central figure in this movie …. the 16 ladies are to some extent , so is the patriotic factor , to some extent …. but what is more , is the new style of story telling which is slowly creeping into the Bollywood film industry …. finally !!!

Subtleness …. is another charming factor which has been incorporated , ( my personal feelings) is and will become a positive factor in days to come …. although the movie is NOT about boy girl , hero heroine relations, but yet there are stages and hints of such relations which creates a much better effect than the typical romances in bollywood movies. In this context i would like to mention the sequence where Sharma meets SRK under the night lamp in the stadium and shahrukh walks away leaving her alone standing …

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