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Release
date:
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July 13, 2018
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Director:
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Shaad Ali
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Cast:
Language:
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Diljit Dosanjh, Angad
Bedi, Taapsee Pannu, Vijay Raaz, Danish Husain, Kulbhushan Kharbanda
Hindi
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You do not have to be a sports
buff to enjoy a good sports biopic. There is something about the blood, sweat,
tears and toil poured into any sporting arena that holds out an impossibly
irresistible allure for filmmakers and audiences – perhaps because the boxing
ring, the wrestling mat, tennis courts and running tracks mirror all life’s
struggles off the field within that limited physical space, even when you know
nothing of the technicalities involved. Now imagine that starting block
advantage combined with a deeply inspiring true saga of the sort on which Soorma is based.
Director Shaad Ali’s new film is about
the life of Indian hockey player and Arjuna awardee Sandeep Singh, whose rise
to the international circuit was interrupted by a freak accident. Singh’s
incredible grit led to his recovery from a potentially career-ending injury. He
went on to lead India to victory in the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup in Malaysia in 2009, and was part of the Indian team that qualified for the Olympics in 2012
after a drought.
As commercial Bollywood veterans
might point out, iss kahaani main drama hai, emotion hai, romance hai, naach-gaana hai aur twist bhi (this story has drama, emotion,
romance, song ‘n’ dance and a twist) – in short, all the ingredients that tend
to please conventional audiences. And in the first half, Ali (who earlier
directed Saathiya and Bunty Aur Babli) and his co-writers
Suyash Trivedi and Siva Ananth mine each of these elements to come up with an
entertaining mix.
Sandeep a.k.a. Sunny, as they
portray him, is a rebellious kid who abandons hockey out of anger towards a
violent, bullying coach but returns to it nine years later – as a still
rebellious somewhat immature adult – to impress a pretty girl. Harpreet is a
gifted hockey player who aspires to represent India in the game. As their
romance and Sunny’s training progress, he evolves as an athlete but is jolted
out of his immaturity as a human being only by that life-altering calamity.
So far so good, pre-interval.
Diljit Dosanjh is cute as Sunny. The popular singer-turned-actor manages to
capture the mischief and silliness of a young man who is fixated on the woman
he loves and simultaneously unaware of his rare talent. Taapsee Pannu’s
athletic frame is perfectly suited to her role as Harpreet, and she occasionally
manages to get to the heart of her character’s passion for her game and
affection for Sunny although she is written with far less depth than the male
protagonist.
Before the break, the scenes of
their training are convincing and the matches Sunny plays, thanks to Chirantan Das’
clever camerawork and Farooq Hundekar’s keen editing, are utterly gripping. As
someone who does not care a fig about most sport, I found myself cheering each
time Sunny scored a goal and willing him to win. This, to my mind, is the
ultimate test for the depiction of any sport in cinema.
Shankar Ehsaan Loy’s songs –
though not on a par with their brilliant soundtrack for Meghna Gulzar’s Raazi earlier this year – fit well into Soorma. I particularly enjoyed the
unapologetic Bollywoodness in the way the music directors and Ali use the hook
“padhariye padhariye” in a musical
interlude to celebrate Sunny’s early successes.
Against this backdrop, Soorma also brings us the heartwarming
bond Sunny shares with his elder brother Bikramjeet Singh (Angad Bedi) who is a
hockey player and his mentor. Bedi is really good here, as he always is, but I
am tired of watching him only in supporting roles, when all I can think of each
time I see him is: when on earth will his industry realise that this man is
leading man material? This is an actor who fills the screen with his presence,
is handsome, hot and can act till kingdom come as we know from Pink, Dear Zindagi and even F.A.L.T.U.
What are you waiting for, Bollywood?
Back to this film, the hockey
matches continue to be well shot and the gentlemen’s acting continues to be effective
even in the second half, but the film itself becomes far less exciting for two
very obvious reasons. First, it completely fails during Sunny’s recovery from
his injury. And second, the portrayal of the Sunny-Harpreet relationship is
oddly awkward, as though the writing team was trying to be clever and
philosophical about the whole affair, but could not quite get it.
What makes the real Sandeep
Singh’s journey so unique is the manner in which he managed to physically and
mentally lift himself up from an incapacitating disability. Yet for some
reason, instead of entering his mind through that part of the film, Ali &
Co decide to step back and observe him completely from the outside. So from a
distance we watch hospital processes playing out as a song plays in the
background, but we do not get an insight into Sunny’s internal struggles during
those passages – unlike the preceding well-handled scenes when he first
realises that his career may possibly have been destroyed by a casual but cruel
turn of events.
The path to his rehabilitation
centre is immersive. From the moment he gets there though, Soorma becomes superficial.
To make matters worse, Harpreet in
the second half suddenly becomes a spare wheel in Sunny’s tale, with
motivations that come across as flimsy and somewhat stupid. The result is that
the excitement is lost and the narrative becomes insipid.
Sunny’s own motivations also
become pretentiously lofty when he returns to hockey. Initially he played for
Harpreet, then to win over her family, and finally out of commitment to India. At
no point is he shown playing out of unbridled enthusiasm for hockey. While
there is something very endearing about the goal of “India khelna hai” (I want to play for India) that is almost a
refrain in Soorma, and it is obvious
from interviews with many great sportspersons that playing for the country is a
massive high, it is hard to believe that that alone could push an individual to
unprecedented heights if love of the sport itself does not drive them, irrespective
of what their additional compulsions may be. Other sports films by Bollywood
have understood that well. The biopics Bhaag Milkha Bhaag and Mary Kom did. Anurag
Kashyap’s fantastic Mukkabaaz did
too, just this year. And with a vastly different tale to tell, Tigmanshu
Dhulia’s excellent Paan Singh Tomar strode
into the heart and mind of its hero to ensure that his journey, joy and pain
become ours as much as his.
Soorma (which means “warrior”) does
that to a certain extent, but just when it needed to give us an inside view of
Sandeep Singh’s life, it inexplicably decides to become an aloof observer.
Since I did not know about this remarkable man before watching this film
(sorry, sports buffs, but that is the truth), I am glad I did. But it is a pity
that Ali and his team manage to draw us into the pages of his world only up to
a point but mess up the most important chapter. Diljit Dosanjh and Angad Bedi
are always worth watching, but the film should have been a lot more than what
it ends up being.
Rating
(out of five stars): **
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CBFC Rating (India):
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U
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Running time:
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2 hours 11 minutes
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This review has also been published on Firstpost:
Poster
courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/SoormaDiljitDosanjhWithTaapseePannu/
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