Shashank Goyal

At best an average movie from a technical perspective but audience would still find it engaging because of the lack of competition in serious and honest movie category in bollywood. The subject matter is definitely intriguing for the Global Audience but that's the end of the good stuff. There are a lot of problems in the movie but the biggest one is that the story is not really cinematic. The second act has some real moments which are engaging but The third act is very weak and the conflict with the coach was shoehorned to keep up the ante for the protagonist (which not very surprisingly was Aamir Khan's character instead of the two girls who fought their way to the top of World Wrestling). The movie is chock-full cliches. They took the Universal Sports Drama Handbook and ran with it - - A strict misunderstood coach (a talented former failed player) seeking redemption ✔ - Extremely talented but unmotivated players who resent the coach ✔ - The retaliation against the coach - Players realising coach's importance due to an extremely lucky event not arising out of the ongoing events of the story ✔ - The training montage ✔ - The conflict with the egoist sports authority ✔ - The tournament ✔ - Crashing in first match against the favourites ✔ - Gradual uprising defying expectations ✔ - Winning the tournament against the same favourites in a nail-biting (extended/tied) match ✔ Also with the 4-5 montages and the extremely unnecessary narration by a passive character and the lack of character defining scenes (something that 'Chak De India' in the similar genre following all the above mentioned cliches; nailed) makes for a very superficial movie experience which is unacceptable given the potential of the subject matter at hand. Dangal is probably the highest grossing bollywood movie of the year and still not more than a very lenient 6; and its a very sad realization for me as a cinema lover in India.

'Bhavesh Joshi Superhero' is 'Batman Begins' with a desi flavor. There haven't been many Indian movies in the 'Superhero' genre but even among those few, this one is the best of the lot.