Indian cricket ensured its numero uno position in the limited over version of cricket. The young band of blasters has come to the party and has made millions of viewers swearing by the new order. Our cinema has badly betted on cricket or any sport for that matter. Invariably films revolving round sports and or sports persona have failed at the box office. Let’s take a look at 10 most known sport based films.
1. Lagaan: The most celebrated film on cricket and taken
with a great amount of effort. The joint effort of Ashutosh Gowarikar and Aamir
Khan got a whole set of new faces and Gracy Singh to pep up the lone star
Aamir. The film ensured the basics of the game to a nicety and a good part of
the film was a cricket match to a nail biting finish.
2. Iqbal : The cerebral Nagesh Kuknoor gave us the highly
talented Shreyas Tarpade in this engrossing film of a town guy dreaming big and
making it. This was before the lad from Ranchi made it big and cinema was
restricted to the big Metros. Did Nagesh foresee the shift or was it just
cinematic necessity is a moot point. The film was good and enjoyeable.
3. Chak De: This film brought us back to the world of hockey
albeit the least known or followed: women’s hockey. It had the star power of
Shahrukh Khan and among the better performances of the star in the midst of
some real enthusiastic women power. Not withstanding the thematic content, and
the treatment, it required guts to put money on the project. Fortunately it
paid off.
4. Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal: This Vivek Agnihotri film starring
John Abraham with Bipasha Basu and Arshad Warsi was more a film dealing with
the South Asian community in the UK, told through the prism of professional
football, than really based on the game. The film did receive mixed reactions.
5. Awwal Number: This 1990 film from Navketan came at the time
when Dev Anand had developed an anti Midas virus. Every thing he touched turned
into dust and so did his imaginative good Vs bad on the cricket field. Aamir
and Aditya Pancholi playing good and bad respectively came to be summarily
rejected by the audience and not without cause.
6. Dil Bole Hadipa: Aditya chopra decided to put his money
where his heart is and came a cropper. This is arguably the worst from Rani
Mukherjee. The one saving grace on this gender neutral cricket fiasco was the
ever reliable Shahid Kapoor. Like the maker (Anurag Singh) every one connected
with the film were eager to forget the film, this included the theatre guys.
7. Boxer: The film was directed by Raj N Sippy during his
creative times and had Mithun before his weekly (read weakly) appearances.
Alongside Rati Agnihotri, the film has more of Tanuja playing the hero’s mom
than Rati playing the lead. The film as the title suggests is about the
frustration of a Boxer (Danny) and the ultimate success of his son (Mithun).
The film had a hummable hai mubarak aaj ka din shadmani.
8. Apne: Yet again a film on boxers and this time we had all
the Deols in attendance. This Anil Sharma film renewed the success of the
director with the family of the Deols. The threesome came to use the formula
again only to face summary rejection. For all its drama baazi, the film brought
sport and drama together on a platter that people were willing to taste.
9. Hip Hip Hurray: This was a sensitive film from Prakash Jha
and was non-political!!. Jha’s wonderful yet under rated film starring Raj
Kiran and the grossly underutilised Deepti Naval was not even designed to
attract the larger audience. The discerning did watch it when the opportunity
came and given the scale was a nice film made with sincerity and purpose.
10. Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander: Fresh from the success of films
like QSQT the young film maker Mansoor Khan with Aamir took on a film where
sport was a part though not the central theme. Campus life and later the sport
of cycling becomes the mainstay of the film which has Ayesha Jhulka making one
of the rare respectable appearances on the silver screen.
Sport makes for good drama and drama is a good sport. However the two have
failed to make a fine combo in our cinema. Lets look hopefully at the future.
Just like our cricket perhaps this genre of cinema too would arrive at the
level of acceptable quality, till when we would make do with the DVDs of Laggan
and Hip Hip Hurray.