Chak De Rocks

Chak De India employs quite a few movie cliches – the underdog, woefully unmatched sports team winning in the end, individualism versus unity, (borderline) ethnic and gender stereotypes – but still manages to be exciting. The trick is pulled off because, as Jai Arjun notes, the filmmakers resist the urge to overdo the cliches, or any kind of rampant melodrama for the matter. Even the patriotic angle is somewhat restrained. Technically, the film has to be one of the better products to come out of Bollywood – I was quite impressed by the choreography of the hockey sequences and how they showed the tactical planning by teams.

My one big complaint would be the ending, which I thought should have focused more on the women’s celebration than SRK – but it probably has something to do with his contract clause stipulating about ten minutes of screen crying time.

Overall, an entertaining experience and one that more than made up for having previously sat though the execrable Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, a film that even under the influence of half a bottle of fine Shiraz, manages to make Dhoom 2 look like a Bergman production.

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Also re-watched last night: Bachelor Party, possibly the best raunchy, non-PC and ass-kickingly hilarious slapstick comedy to be ever made (and features a very young Tom Hanks). Best line from the film:

Rudy: Let’s have a bachelor party with chicks and guns and fire trucks and hookers and drugs and booze!
Gary: Yeah! Yeah yeah! All the things that make life worth living for!