this weeks big release is chak de india!! and seems its the best release till date this year !!

sports movies are always dangerous wen it comes to bollywood. over melodrama unecessary side tracks and imbessile-like depiction of sports make it a very very unsound proposition to make a movie on sports.

but then there are those fluffy sport- films , and then there are films on sports and sportsmanship. chak de falls in the latter category.

the story of a disgraced former indian hockey team captain who tutors an underdog indian women's hockey team for the unthinkable worldcup win , makes for great cinema on paper.
thankfully, director shamit amin transales the concept seamlessly onto celluloid, giving us a warm freindly and believable hindi film on sports!

no cliche ridden film this is. srk as the coach , excells himself. in his best understated performance till date, he exudes a zen like calm and stals the show, inspite of not being the main character in the film.

having said this , the 16 girls who form the underdogs , the indian women's hockey team , are equally impressive. stark newcomers. these are a bunch of non actors.but its their rawness that makes them belevable. be it the northeastern girls who dislike being refered to as guests in their own country, or the telugu player who correctly dispises northindians who do not find tamil different from telugu, the characters and their potrayal touch a chord in the audiene.

but inspite of all this the real hero of the film is the script. amply describing the lackasidal attitude wid which sports are handled in this cricket crazy nation, the movie subtly shows the discrimination other sports face both from the authorities as well as the trp- hungry media.

combining this with the issue of gender equality, writer jaideep sahni has hit the bulls eye. a dash of patriotic fervour thrown in , sans the chest thumping - suny deol- brand of jingoism , gives us the right film for the independence day weekend!

and at last the clincher! the movie is preceeded by a teaser of the yars most anticipted movie, aaja nachle. jus a glimpse of the lady makes the trip to the theatre worth the ques outside it for the tickets!
watch chakde for srk
watch chak de for hockey and sportsmanship
or simply watch chak de to catch madhuri dixit waltz by in style