Patriotism – no less...

Yes, I saw the movie everyone has been raving about for quite some time now, a la Lagaan, same patriotic fervor, same sense of national patriotism instilled, minus the additional insinuation of colonialism thrown in.

If it is a review I’ll write, I’m a tad too late, we all know by now that the plot is tightly crafted, that SRK has for a change played mature and played his age, that he has restrained himself in the absence of KJ or Yash Chopra giving him a free hand. All that is obvious, what’s appealing is that for a change we have risen above petty romance and shown that men can be stirred by something far greater, sometimes winning isn’t something, its everything, that it is alright to fight, to play dirty, to do anything but win.

I think that what clicked for Chak De... was not the patriotism alone, not Preeti Sabharwal’s sweltering looks or SRK but that it appealed to the best within each of us, it was an urge to that spirit we lose somewhere in the humdrum of life, which takes us places in life. Be it the maddening intensity that Kabir Khan (SRK’s role in the movie) experiences towards anything related to Hockey, be it the stakes with which every girl plays the game, or the moment when the girls lose to the men’s hockey team and yet get a standing definition. It is the triumph of grit that is giving a standing ovation in that scene, not their graceful loss. Kabir Khan speaks a line then which is the truest motive of any team play, everything else is just white lies, he says if you really play to win, first play for your country, then for your team and if you have anything left in you, for yourself, It is a point where the team becomes you, and everything else in life takes a backseat. Sometimes winning is the only motive that justifies life’s struggle.

Chak De .. is a salute to that spirit, and what a salute at that. Don’t look at it from the technicalities aspect. I mean, The Pursuit of Happyness was far from perfect. But it is not technicalities that make a great movie; it is the intention and the honesty of projecting that intention. SRK’s look when the team wins at the end justified the entire movie literally. It captured what winning can mean to someone who wants it the way it should be wanted – more than anything else.