Badlapur Boys:
The rural boys are totally overawed by the town atmosphere when they go to
participate in a tournament where they do not know the rules or even the basics
but have the passion. This is exactly the visible mind set of filmmaker
Shailesh Varma as he treads the road less travelled – sports cinema. In a
Ashutosh Gowarikar meets Shimit Amin space the film maker chooses a game less
popular and surely less followed. Alongside the game plan is also a political
under current as fragile as the script and that makes for a stale story told
without passion. Good intentions apart, you search for positives in a film that
seems going on for ages in the limited 120 odd minutes.
Badalpur is a parched village in Uttar Pradesh where the naïve still hope that
the government would help when a motley group of seven odd guys meet the
District Collector. However the bureaucracy a thing or two when it takes the
threat of Ram Pevez lightly. He however like the proverbial village school
master gives his little son a few lessons and immolates himself in furtherance
of the demand for water for the village. The village sees this act as madness
and nearly shuns the family. The widow (Kishore Sahane) obviously has to find
an indifferent village and poverty. She packs off her son to the nearby village
Thakur (Aman Varma) whose tuff calls are balanced by his Mom. The little boy
Vijay now hears the hum of Kabadi on the dry fields and follows it only to be
chastened for lack of professional commitment as a shepherd. The local Kabaddi
team for inexplicable reasons do not accept him.
However a chanced encounter at the village mela and the veteran coach Suraj
Singh (Annu Kapoor – the usual ham) takes fancy to the commitment and talent of
Vijay and wonders why is not part of the local kabaddi team. One thing leads to
the other and soon the group of innocent villagers are pitch forked to play the
national tournament. There is then an insipid parallel love tale blooming with
the enthusiasm of a winter flower between the shy Vijay and the coy Sapna
(Saranya Mohan). The story moves on not just predictable but clichéd lines. There
are bad guys in the loosing team, good guys in the winning team. There are
black sheep who are identified. Any one will tell from the holes in the script
that the Badalpur Boys are going to win (and this is going to be the only
victory for them!!). There is also a tragic twist to show that the film maker
is willing to tread a slightly different path and sing a different tune.
The film lacks spirit and energy. It is painfully meandering and you wonder why
a film dealing with sport is so disconsolate. The cast to begin with seem to be
surprisingly unfamiliar with the craft. The central pair have no chemistry
going and there is just no visible camaraderie in the boys at a time when male
bonding has often been the spirit of many Hindi films. This is a script that
simply does not take off. Damp squib.
Rating: one and half stars.
+ : Intention
– Execution.
L. Ravichander.