Gold
3.5
Drama
Cast: Akshay Kumar, Amit Sadh, Kunal Kapoor, Mouni Roy, Vineet Kumar, Sunny Kaushal, Nikita Dutta
Director: Reema Kagti
Story: An account of ‘Free India’s ‘ victory in the 1948 olympics and the struggle that made it possible.
Review: Gold starts off at the 1936 Olympic Games held in Berlin, where India is playing in the final. The first 10-15 minutes of the film are quite melodramatic and I guess the makers realised that because the melodrama got turned down a few notches after that. Akshay Kumar plays the patriotic manager of a hockey team who claims that he can lead the ‘free India’ team to victory. He expects people to believe him and they mostly do. When they don’t, he becomes a stumbling, fumbling alcoholic who comes back home haggard and miserable much to the dismay of his wife.
Also, I don’t know which accent Akshay Kumar was speaking in, but it wasn’t Bengali. His bad attempt at the accent results in quite an unconvincing performance. He should have taken tips in perfecting the accent from his Bengali co-star Mouni Roy. Mouni Roy was good in her debut performance, it wasn’t exactly her fault that her only job was to start and end her day by cursing her poor husband. The rest of the cast Amit Sadh, Kunal Kapoor, Sunny Kaushal, Vineet Kumar Singh all do a good job. I also enjoyed seeing Nikita Dutta as Sunny Kaushal’s love interest. This film has a few light moments and a few, ‘roll your eyes in disgust, plain silly’ moments but the best scene has to be the final match. It has you on the edge of your seats and the whole audience applauds whenever India hits a goal.
This film is set through a timeline of 12 years and within those 12 years, we are shown the frustration of the Indians who desperately want to free themselves from the shackles of the British and establish an identity of their own. We see a hockey team forming and breaking apart and we are also made to witness the gruesome India- Pakistan partition. The partition which not only divided our country, it divided religions, opinions, loyalties, and most of all, it divided people. Even after 72 years, animosities and bitter feelings still prevail and it is heartbreaking to watch. Politics, ego clashes, deceit, victory, failure, agony all are here but where this ‘copper’ of a film really strikes gold, is when it appeals to our patriotic side.
Patriotic films always appeal to the emotions of the masses. So when this patriotic film is also a sports film, that too about India’s national sport, and is releasing on Independence Day, you have to expect that the audience will be high on emotion. So at the end, whether you feel anything for the characters or the film as a whole, is uncertain but you certainly come out of the Cinema hall a proud Indian and that feeling is worth it.
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