Skip to main content

Chhalang

Chhalang

This is not a great movie like Dangal or even a good one like Chak de India, but it is one that you could watch because you do not let a Hansal Mehta - Rajkumar Rao combo go unwatched or because you have FOMO!

So I did watch it ( I leave it to you, to figure out why I watched it 😂😂😂 ) and found it a pleasing watch, a lighthearted one that acts as a palate cleanser. 

Hansal Mehta directs this sports caper with a light hand, and has a good cast. Saurabh Shukla, Satish Kaushik are delightful as always. Jatin Sarna was not given his due. The lady playing Rao's mother is very good.

Mohammed Zeeshan Ayub is a total delight to watch and Nusrat Bharucha was good in this role. Though she could have avoided the towering heels on a kabbadi ground. Rajkumar Rao is competent, not excellent though.

The writing is a bit lackadaisical, and it was strange that for a sports film, where the focus should have been on the players, the writers felt no compulsion to develop stronger characters there. A golden opportunity was squandered here, to milk emotions from the child artistes. Thus, the emotions all originate from Rajkumar Rao, and he has no one to really play off of. 

There are a few preachy undercurrents, from the morality police, to the attitude of parents when their children start focusing on sports, but they do not overwhelm the plot. 
The haryanvi accent of all the actors is on point. And that is always a plus for me.

What I don't get is the ridiculous parameters on which critics are basing their ratings. Both for this movie and Ludo.
If Chalaang had been made in Malyalam or in Korean, they would have been all over it, but now they can't cobble together two words of praise.

The same thing for Ludo, had it been a British or American film, or in any language that needed them to read subtitles whilst watching, they would have spoken endlessly about the delight of the themes and the vision of the director etc. But because a hindi movie director is doing it, it doesn't work for those jackasses! 

I even heard one of them proclaim that Hansal Mehta should not stray from his genre. What pray is his genre? He is the man who has given us Shahid and Aligarh and Omerta after having directed Khana Khazana for roughly 2 decades! Surely he knows what genre he wants to do!

Ignore those mindless nutcases!
Ignore me and make up your own mind!

I shall always fall back on hindi cinema, even if I have discovered the magic of Malyalam cinema and World cinema. 
So it's on to Soorarai Pottru, for me next.
Let me know what you are watching.
Happy Diwali!

#MiniasReviews
#AllLivesMatter
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Qala

Anvita Dutt, is a master story teller. And she, tells this one well too. She and Kanika Dillon have a knack of painting their leading ladies in shades of grey. Whilst Kanika brings in the whacky and the wild, Anvita brings in the angst. It makes for great entertainment.  This movie seeps in slowly and is for those of you who like the slow burn. There is drama and angst and tragedy and it leaves you wondering, what did I just watch? Was this a movie or sheer art? And it is a movie that stays with you for a bit.  The visuals are stunning, particularly those of the boat on the water. The noir-ish feel of the movie fits the mood perfectly. One does know what has happened and why, but the visuals and the artistry keep you in thrall. This is the story of a woman, who learns to be competitive in her mother's womb itself. Her quest for survival began in the womb itself. She then spends all her childhood and teen years having only her mother and constantly craving her validation. Is ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Monica, O My Darling

Straight off the bat, let me tell you that I went into this movie cold. I just saw the trailer and put it on my watch list. I was totally enamored with the cast and the premise. I knew I was going to watch this one, so I didn't delve into the promotional shenanigans.  So if you are of the same bent of mind, stop reading and start watching.  And on your behalf, I did Google Ankola, it is a town in Karnataka and is not to be confused with Akola in Maharashtra. Ha ! Ha! Netflix has been delighting us with gems like Raat Akeli thi, Haseen dilruba and Bulbul. Add this one to that list and think Gehraiyaan. I need not stress on the proficient star cast. They are masters of their craft. Starting with the sneaky Rajkummar Rao, the sultry Huma Quereshi and the wily Radhika Apte, the ensemble includes the creepy Sukant Goel, the beleaguered Zayn Marie and many others. For me Sikandar Kher was a standout. A shoutout to his intensity and his baritone.  The dialogues are spot on and t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Suicides

I am sorry, I am going to come across as terribly insensitive when I have said this but, what is all this fuss about? A celebrity was unable to cope with the pressures of the life he had chosen and gave up on living. I mean have you ever seen a rejected sportsperson commit suicide? And the person in question here actually had a degree from a very prestigious institute and could have looked for another job, but he didn't.  So my take on this is: 1- Nepotism is a fact in all walks of life. 2- A person who is suffering from Clinical Depression is a person who needs to be constantly monitored and a care-taker needs to be assigned, because patients of such depression always experiment with dosages and such. They also cease to take their medications. 3- Here it seems to have been the sister who was the designated care-taker, so why isn't she being questioned? 4- Also the doctor who was treating him said that SSR had discontinued his treatment. The correct protocol is to m...
Post a Comment
Read more