Akshay Kumar, Vineet Kumar Singh, Kunal Kapoor in Gold (Courtesy: akshaykumar) Cast: Akshay Kumar, Mouni Roy, Vineet Kumar Singh, Amit Sadh, Kunal Kapoor Director: Reema Kagti Rating: 2 Stars (Out of 5) In the game with a solitary actor with proven star power, Gold, written and directed by Reema Kagti, glitters only intermittently. Hinging overly on the inner and external struggles of a fictitious character essayed by Akshay Kumar, the sports drama does not adequately mine the individual stories of the plucky players who got the better of Great Britain on the latter's home turf to win independent India's first Olympic field hockey gold in 1948. With the spotlight squarely on Tapan Das, a team manager grappling with his own set of issues in a battle to stay relevant in free India's hockey plans, neither the turmoil of the times nor the dynamics of assembling a winning combination in the face of severe odds are depicted in their entirety or with the requisite force. Gold leaves an entire goldmine untapped. This film is primarily about avenging "do sau saal ki ghulami (200 years of slavery)", so the principal enemy is England, not Pakistan. This is one aspect of Gold that sets it apart from other Bollywood sports films. When the Indians takes on Great Britain in the London Olympic final, Pakistani players in the stands cheer them on. And before Pakistan plays the Netherlands in the semis, the Indian manager goes to the former team's change room and greets the captain, a former protege. Akshay Kumar in Gold (Image courtesy: akshaykumar) But, then, the protagonist is a Bengali and stereotyping is inevitable. Even when that man seems to be speaking grammatically perfect Hindi, he has to have a thick regional accent. He and his wife have to frequently break into Bangla to prove which part of the country they belong to. Which self-respecting Bengali in a Bollywood film can get by without uttering "Urri baba", "gondogol" or "aami jaani" a few times? Tapan Das follows the script. His wife, played by Mouni Roy, adds her bit to the macher jhol syndrome: she pronounces fish as 'feesh'. It stinks. The lead actor of Gold should have been the film's strength. He instead turns out to be its biggest weakness - he overshadows, or in many cases completely blanks out, the little real-life stories that might have made the film a more complete and complex portrait of a hockey team that made history. The mercurial Tapan Das all too frequently lapses into facetiousness, especially in his banter with his wife Monobina, who can barely keep him off the bottle and his self-destructive ways. But, of course, he is the hero of the story but none of his transgressions push him off the rails. The same cannot be said for the film's many gratuitous digressions. In one sequence, a scion of a United Provinces royal family, Raghubir Pratap Singh (Amit Sadh), a talented but super-egoistic centre-forward, stops his speeding car when he spots an unwashed, impoverished man sitting under a tree by the dirt track. The princeling alights from the vehicle, takes off all his clothes and gives them to the beggar. Akshay Kumar and Mouni Roy in Gold (Image courtesy: imouniroy) Tapan Das, strapped for cash and coming off several career-threatening setbacks, makes his way to a Buddhist monastery in the woods and seeks access to its grounds for India's Olympic preparations. The hockey-loving head monk first nods his head to indicate refusal and then breaks his five-year-old maun vrat (vow of silence) and acquiesces when he hears the name of his favourite player, Samrat (Kunal Kapoor), the star of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, where India laid Germany low before a home crowd that included a furious Fuhrer. The manager is always high on cheap whisky but rather low on scruples when it comes to money. He understandably has detractors in the hockey federation, one of whom eggs him on to get drunk at a party thrown to announce free India's first Olympic field hockey team. Sloshed, he breaks into boisterous song and dance and misbehaves with the British ladies at the do. By way of punishment, he is barred from accompanying the team to the 1948 London Olympics. The players take off for the Games without him. That is drama for you. In a far more effective interlude, the fissures in the team on regional lines are snuffed out by Samrat. He orders the players to repeatedly move a pile of bricks from one end of the field to the other. They keep doing the coach's bidding until they are out of breath. Having done a lot of huffing and puffing, the boys realise that there is a less exacting way available to them: teamwork. Gold is littered with such off-the-field sequences that stem from flights of fancy that have no basis in fact. Of course, the film does not claim to be an accurate reenactment of independent India's 1948 Olympic hockey campaign only a year after earning freedom from British rule and grappling with the depletion of its ranks in the wake of the horrific Partition riots. It projects itself as a work of pure fiction. And that is a pity. It is difficult to say how much brighter Gold would have been had it deigned to tell the true story of Balbir Singh Sr, a Partition survivor who scored two of India's four goals in the final of the London Olympics or of the character who goes by the name of Imtiaz Ali Shah (Vineet Kumar Singh) - named the captain of the Indian team, he opts to migrate to Pakistan fearing for his life, like many of the real Muslim hockey stars of the day. It is, however, certain that it would have been a more gripping and convincing sage. Gold opens with the Berlin Olympics hockey final, at the end of which the Indian team receives the gold medal as the Union Jack flutters. Tapan Das half-flashes an Indian tricolour with the charkha in the middle and ehorts the players to salute the flag.<doc-sep>Rating: Director: Reema Kagti Cast: Akshay Kumar, Mouni Roy, Amit Sadh, Kunal Kapoor, Sunny Kaushal, Vineet Kumar Singh and others Runtime: 153 minutes After ‘Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd’ and ‘Talaash: The Answer Lies Within’, not many would’ve expected an out-and-out commercial film from Reema Kagti. However, considering Akshay Kumar’s recent line-up of films, another venture boosting his ‘Bharat Kumar’ moniker was surely on the cards. Irrespective of their contrasting turns with this Excel Entertainment production, the duo delivers an impressive and emotion-packed sports drama. Tapan Das (Akshay) is Junior Manager of the Indian hockey team that is gearing up for the Olympics final against Germany in Berlin in 1936. He fires up the boys including captain and star player Samrat (Kunal Kapoor)and Imtiaz (Vineet Kumar Singh) with his half-time pep talk by showing them a banned tricolour which he’s hid inside his jacket. The team responds in style and trash the hosts 8-1, but Tapan isn’t happy as the winners went by the name ‘British India.’ As World War II forces cancellation of two Olympics, he turns alcoholic and is sacked for corruption, and is removed from jobs in football and wrestling, and is literally on the streets. His wife Monobina (Mouni Roy) is equally frustrated with him and abuses him left, right and centre. But the imminent Independence and announcement of Olympics in 1948 offers him a fresh lease of life and the opportunity to win gold as just India brings him back to life and the venue, Great Britain, gives him another reason to be fired up about ‘avenging 200 years of slavery.’ With Samrat retiring, he makes Imtiaz the new captain and scouting across the country, assembles a fine group of players including Raghubir (Amit Sadh) and Himmat (Sunny Kaushal). The Partition wreaks havoc in their plans, with their captain moving across the country and a handful from earlier team left. He turns to Samrat again, who agrees to manage the new set of boys this time. With numerous hurdles in their paths, including a jealous co-manager, infighting and more, the story is about how they overcome all the odds to win India’s first gold medal as an independent country. ‘Gold’ is filled with a number of moments that will stay back with you after you exit the theatre. A scene showing riots after the announcement of Partition, Sadiq’s heartbreaking moment informing his decision of going to Pakistan, Tapan’s dressing room speech during the 1948 final, the thrilling climax and the emotional presentation ceremony after it, stand out. There are numerous light-hearted situations that will bring a smile to your face and perhaps even make you laugh, mostly Tapan’s moments with his wife and Raghubir-Himmat’s tiff scenes. Akshay is the star performer with his act while being a good-for-nothing husband and also wearing the patriotic heart on his sleeve. Some of his dialogues will make you chuckle and his talk of ‘Desh Bhakti’ will make you emotional, though some might find it a bit too preachy. His Bengali, however, sounds completely different to his co-star’s. TV actress Mouni Roy makes a fine debut as the irritated yet loving wife and looks extremely convincing and relatable as a Bengali woman. Sunny Kaushal, brother of current sensation Vicky Kaushal, is the pick of the lot from the supporting actors. He is impressive, be it at refusing to salute a British officer, mouthing lines like ‘Inquilaab Zindabad happens before breakfast,’ distress at being benched and conflict with Amit Sadh. His love story with TV actress Nikita Dutt's character is particularly cute. Amit Sadh as the ‘Ameerzaada’ Thakur scion is excellent and his proudly flaunting his ‘born with centre forward’ tag is effective. His jibes at Sunny’s character and final change of heart are among the defining moments. Vineet Kumar Singh is good, but after a lead role in an Anurag Kashyap film ‘Mukkabaaz’, he doesn’t have much to do here. Kunal Kapoor as the player who still makes people ‘fan boy’ over him, is convincing in his brief role, and his ‘unity task’ is one of the highlights of the film. There are numerous scenes which will remind of other sports films, Akshay’s masterstroke at the end from touchline (left-right feet scene), dressing room speech (sattar minute), player refusing to pass (Komal-Preeti tiff) is all ala Shah Rukh Khan's ‘Chak De! India.’ That dream to win gold through someone else, manager getting jealous of protagonist might freshen memory of Aamir Khan’s ‘Dangal’, while battle against British ‘Gulami’ and a sort of ‘Ghanan Ghanan’ moment in a different situation here will send you back in time to ‘Lagaan.’ The hockey scenes are picturised well, but the pace of play seemed a bit slow at some places. The VFX is good at most places, except at certain scenes where the crowd looked blurry. Music by Sachin-Jigar, Arko and Tanishk Bagchi is impressive. Romantic number ’Naino Ne Baandhi’ and inspiring track ‘Ghar Layenge Gold’ stand out, while ‘Monobina’ and ‘Chad Gayi Hai’, though important to plot, marginally affects the pace. Other songs are good too. The background music deserves special mention as it induces goosebumps in the viewer. Reema Kagti and Rajesh Devraj’s script is not a true account of a real-life incident, but is a fictional and gripping take on the actual story of free India’s first gold. There’s never a dull moment and Kagti’s direction deserves credit for it. All in all, Akshay and his boys deliver the perfect Independence Day release and win not just gold, but also hearts! Go for ‘Gold’!<doc-sep>Movie: Gold Cast: Akshay Kumar, Kunal Kapoor, Mouni Roy, Amit Sadh, Vineet Kumar Singh, Sunny Kaushal Direction: Reema Kagti Duration: 2 hours, 34 minutes Genre: Sports drama Story: Tapan Das (Akshay) feels humiliated and sad to see the Union Jack go up when British India’s hockey team wins the gold at the 1936 Olympics. After August 15, 1947, he wants Independent India to avenge that humiliation and compete in the 1948 London Olympics. His trials and tribulations while putting together a team, which will clinch us GOLD, form the crux of the story. Review: Currently, our national hockey team is considered a strong threat to top countries but are inconsistent. However, in the years between 1936-1948, the team was both potent and consistent. And it is during this golden period that Tapan Das, an alcoholic, unscrupulous, sports fanatic Bengali dreamt of India winning her first Gold medal. Hockey was a craze back then. The royalty and commoners patronised it. Parents encouraged sons to pick up the stick and the administration gave them opportunities to display their proficiency in the field. Here the star players, Samrat (Kunal Kapoor), Imtiaz Shah (Vineet Kumar), Raghubir Pratap Singh (Amit Sadh) and Himmat Singh (Sunny Kaushal) are subtle and superb. Each of these actors delivers convincing performances; staying on the assembly line and still managing to shine through. Once again, Akshay is the backbone of this sports drama that has been shot on a lavish scale in Leeds and in Punjab. The actor, who has become synonymous with quality, gives this outing his all. Happy, sad, frustrated or furious, he internalises the process of a belittled man seeking to bring glory to his motherland. The nice thing here is, he makes his act look so simple. He dances with gay abandon in 'Chad Gayi Hai,' though frankly, the song itself seems so out of place. Monobina (Mouni), who shows up as Akshay’s dominating wife, is convincing. Director Reema Kagti (of Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd and Talaash fame), who has until this film worked on a smaller scale, does a convincing job of decorating her large canvas with neatly-choreographed hockey matches, sepia-tinted frames and archive footage to convey her pre-azaadi message. But the pace of this film dips in several places. And the communal harmony feelings and situations seem forced. However, the only thing that carries it through at such times is strong – Long Live India sentiment. Patriots will never come to terms with the British having ruled over us for 200 years. If you’re Indian, no victory (whether it is on a sports field or in any other sphere) against the oppressors is small. So, while one can nitpick and find several stupid situations in the way the Indo-Pak Partition drama unfolds or how the goras cheer for us on the field, you discount most of it because even 71 years after we have achieved freedom, we’re still seething about those who kept us enslaved. Saluting the Indian tricolour is a way of life for some of us and Gold unabashedly uses this to its advantage. Verdict: Akshay Kumar’s tally of ‘Gold’ medals just went up. Give Brand India and him a standing ovation. Critic’s Rating: 3.5/5<doc-sep>Chak De! India is arguably the gold standard for any contemporary Hindi film hoping to use sport as a showcase for this country's complex multi-cultural landscape. Gender politics, a factious nation's religious and regional tensions, and the inevitability of inter-personal rivalries in a team game all found a place in Shimit Amin's fabulous 2007 film about the Indian women's hockey team at the turn of the century finding its oxygen under a new coach, yet it appeared not to strain a nerve to sermonise. Chak De! is a hard act to follow. Director Reema Kagti's Gold sets itself on the same playing field — hockey, this time for men — but shifts its gaze to a period stretching from 1936 pre-Independence India to the first Olympics we played after the British left our shores. India, as we know from history texts, dominated world hockey for several decades back then. Cobbling a team together for the 1948 Olympics was a challenging task, however, for a fictional team manager called Tapan Das (Akshay Kumar), with Partition having robbed us of many of our finest sporting talents. In this scenario, Tapanda battles his own alcoholism and a cynical hockey establishment, in addition to the parochial and class divisions within the team to get free India a gold, not so much for sporting glory and self-realisation but to take revenge on our former colonisers. In the tradition of several Akshay Kumar films of the past 3-4 years, Kagti — who earlier made the neatly irreverent Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd and the wonderfully mellow Talaash — goes full throttle into loud, chest-thumping nationalist territory for Gold. If a point has to be made, it is spelt out not once but repeatedly. If a personal experience has to be a source of inspiration for a brainwave on the hockey field, the dialogue from the earlier moment must be replayed, on the assumption perhaps that viewers are not bright enough to get the hint from the proceedings on screen. If two characters are going to be at war in the dressing room, then their potential clash is announced through a long song during which the visuals stress and re-stress and further stress their class differences, just in case the audience did not quite get it from the initial indicators of one chap's evident aristocratic background and the other's evident lack of it. And when the national anthem plays in a scene that is truly and unexpectedly moving, the emotional resonance of the turn of events that preceded it is not deemed enough, the film's patriotic fervour has to be underlined with a fluorescent marker in the form of one man — you can guess who — shouting "Vande Mataram." It is hard to understand why a filmmaker as gifted as Kagti could not see that there is melodrama and great beauty intrinsic to the story of a newly Independent and poor nation winning a hockey Olympic gold for the first time under its own flag. The failure to recognise this is Gold's Achilles heel. Kagti does manage to weave some moments of quiet into the larger tapestry of overstatement she is working on — such as that scene in which the team first realises they will be ripped apart by Partition, or the dynamics in the bar fight which almost destroys Team India, or the warmth between the former teammates turned rivals from India and Pakistan at Olympics 1948, and most of all the two hockey matches that dominate the closing half hour. These are the passages in which we get to see what Gold could have been if it had not underestimated its audience or been overly anxious to cash in on the raucous, aggressive patriotism dominating the current national discourse. Kagti has saved her best for Gold's last 30 minutes, during which, despite all the film's follies, I found myself cheering for the Indian team and welling up with emotion for them. Of the cast, Sunny Kaushal and Amit Sadh play the only hockey players who are well fleshed out in the writing. The excellent Vineet Kumar Singh takes on the role of Imtiaz Ali Shah, captain of the undivided Indian team, giving his character far more heft than the screenplay affords. Unfortunately for the film, these men are sidelined in favour of Akshay Kumar’s Tapanda – of course – who is foregrounded throughout. Kumar gets the most screen time as manager-cum-talent scout-cum-coach-cum-everything to the team, but delivers an awkward, uninspired performance in which his effort to be Bengali overshadows all else. The oddest part of Gold is the fictionalisation of the hockey players who in reality won India golds at the 1936 and 1948 Olympics. Dhyan Chand and his colleagues are all part of sporting legend in India, yet for some reason, instead of using the names of these men who did us proud and bringing their characters to life, we get made-up names and characters based on their experiences instead in Gold. Yelling out Vande Mataram on screen can hardly compensate for this disservice to these giants from our past. Gold has its occasional redeeming moments, but for the most part it just skims the surface of a landscape once examined with such depth by Chak De! India.<doc-sep>
Why see a film where you already know what is going to happen? Gold starring Akshay Kumar is the perfect example of a film where the posters, trailers, promotions all scream out the outcome. But the way director Reema Kagti tells this tale is worth a watch. The director puts Akshay Kumar on the backseat. He is the 'paagal Bangali'. The slightly crazy alcoholic who has seen the Indian hockey team defeat strong contenders on the Olympic field with 12 goals. He stood by the winning team from British India as the band played God Save The King. The manager of the Indian hockey team, Tapan Das, dreams of seeing the word 'British' struck off from in front of Indian Team. In 1936 Berlin, as the world watched British India defeat Germany in the finals, Tapan is restless. The world plunges into war in 1939. Tapan sees his dream rotting headline by headline as newspapers say World War II has swallowed yet another Olympics. He wastes away in alcohol as his nagging wife Monobina (Mouni Roy in a cracker of a Bollywood debut) keeps him from drowning in alcohol. In 1945, the second World War is finally over. The 1948 Olympics are announced. The venue is London. With the Olympics a few years away and the Indian independence a few days away, Tapan gets a new lease of life. He starts off trying to realise the dream that united the Berlin Olympics team. Only that the team is no longer in its earlier state. As Tapan sets out to scout for talent and make the journey to the Olympic gold possible, we are taken on a ride filled with the joy of a united India and the trauma of Partition. And finally, how India avenges the slavery of 200 years and defeats the British on their home ground. In Gold, Reema Kagti keeps Akshay in the background like Tapan keeps his Himmat Singh (Sunny Kaushal). Tapan (with his shaky Bengali accent) is the proverbial glue that holds this team and the film together. But Akshay Kumar never lets his superstar aura take centrestage. He is the king-maker. From the sidelines, he cheers the team and propels them forward, both figuratively and otherwise. Gold gives many of those Chak De moments that every sports film since then has. Kagti takes a lot of creative liberties in crafting a nail-biting climax, the intra-team skirmishes and ego battles. Tapan Das is not Kabir Khan in terms of his designation. He is the brains behind this Indian hockey team. The director puts her best man behind the team and lets the story and the performances surface. In Gold, Reema Kagti gives India another tale of long-lost glory to be proud of. On Independence Day, what better a crowd-puller than that? The journey to the Olympic gold is fraught with disappointments and hurdles. How Tapan Das makes the impossible possible is the story of Gold. Akshay shines best in the frames that he shares with someone else. Be it with a Vinnet Singh (who is his usual brilliant self) or a Kunal Kapoor (back on screen with his Rang De Basanti fervour) or a Sunny Kaushal (very impressive) or an Amit Sadh (commendable performance). Or with his wife Monobina, played by a fantastic Mouni Roy. Mouni crosses over from the small screen to the big with elan and matches Akshay in every scene that she is with him in. All through the film, Sachin-Jigar gives a heart-thumping background music to match the pace of Gold. The pace drops in the second half, but seeing the semi-finals play out slo-mo is every bit worth it. Gold is made for the Independence-Day audience who love Akshay Kumar. Let there be no mistake about that. But Kagti is a fine storyteller. The execution of the journey is where you need to put your money on, much like the Indian team and not the individual players. Cinematographer Alvaro Gutierrez recreates the 1940s perfectly with hardly a note out of place. Songs in the film aid the narrative. But at the end of the day, all of this is not what people go to watch an Akshay Kumar film for. Gold ticks that box but is a lot more too. Make time for Gold this week. (The writer tweets as @ananya116) ALSO SEE | Gold true story: How independent India won its first Olympic gold ALSO SEE: Gold film tickets all sold out on Day 1