Camera: Athar Rather
Editor: Kunal Mehra
Producer: Chandni Sharma
Each time one sees a sports film, especially one on hockey, somehow it becomes very difficult to shake off the memory of Shimit Amin’s brilliant 2007 film – Chak De! India
The film touched upon a number of issues and yet the ease with which it told us the triumphant tale of an underdog women’s hockey team battling cynicism and internal feuds, without getting preachy, makes Chak De the gold standard for sports films.
Now Gold might also be about hockey but it’s positioned in a much more shrill, less subtle territory.
Director Reema Kagti who previously made the delightful Honeymoon Travels and the quiet noir Talaash seems new to this loud, chest-thumping world where the patriotic fervour needs to be spelt out loud and in caps all the time; basically the kind our man Akshay Kumar seems at home with.
Rajesh Devraj’s screenplay gives us a fictionalised retelling of the actual victory where a newly independent India won its first Olympic Gold as a free nation in the 1948 Summer Olympics by beating Britain on their home ground.
This premise itself has enough fuel to pack a solid punch but the film never suppresses its urge to over dramatise.
The movie opens with the Berlin Olympics of 1936 when defending champions India picks up the gold medal but the victory feels sullied after the Union Jack is unfurled.
India was after all still under the rule of the colonisers. However, an eccentric but driven junior team manager Tapan Das (Akshay Kumar) wove dreams of clinching the gold at Olympics for free India.
Eventually India attains her freedom from British rule but making a national team that can win an Olympic gold proves to be an uphill task.
It is at its more quiet, less ornate moments when Gold truly shines. Like when Tapan Das shows us a little glimpse of the Tiranga he surreptitiously carries around at the Berlin finals even as the British anthem is played. The team members, all moist-eyed symbolically dedicate their win to their motherland. No words are spoken yet the burning desire to play for a free India is effectively conveyed. Or when old friends and teammates suddenly find themselves torn apart by partition, the aching pain is well portrayed.
These “chak de” moments make Gold truly special.
Also it’s interesting the way the various class and caste differences are integrated into the process of team formation.
Raghubir Pratap Singh played by the dapper Amit Sadh and the innocent sense of entitlement that comes with him and his royal upbringing, or the endearing chutzpah of Himmat Singh so brilliantly portrayed by the exuberant Sunny Kushal, is essayed rather convincingly. Sunny Kaushal is frankly the surprise package in the film.
Even Kunal Roy Kapoor and Vineet Singh ensure their performances bring out empathy and convey the meaning even if they had limited scope in terms of screen time and character formation.
Gold is laced with rousing, crowd pleasing ingredients but the formula doesn’t quite pack a punch. The songs, especially the romance between Akshay Kumar and his on screen wife Mouni Roy, makes the plot wobbly. And the god-awful caricature of Bangla that can be detected in Kumar’s prattle throughout the film is a huge turn off.
But despite these flaws one can’t help but surrender to the charm of Gold!
The last 30 mins is when the movie truly comes alive. With the on-field hockey shots creatively choreographed, Gold does tug at our heartstrings, as does the earnestness of Akshay Kumar even if he at times is guilty of overdoing the act. For that heady desh bhakti ka jazba and some genuinely moving moments go watch Gold!
3 Quints out of 5.
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