It’s been taking me awhile, but I’m working my way down the list of Bollywood flicks I want to see. I had high hopes for this last one, and oddly enough they weren’t crushed.
I saw this trailer for Chak De within moments of walking into my very first big-screen Bollywood experience. If anything, it had as profound an impact on me as the movie that followed. In the long minutes of sitting in the dark, as girl hockey players yelled and shook their sticks, I knew that I was a fan of Shahrukh Khan and that I always would be.
A sports epic about an Indian field hockey team is not the sort of thing that I thought I would enjoy, let alone adore. There are no musical numbers (whatever the trailer night lead you to believe). There is no glitz and most of the actors are unknowns.
But that’s not to say this is a simple sports movie, the sort where a gruff but loveable coach teaches his ragtag group of misfits how to come together and become a team.
I mean, that is what the movie’s about, but serious issues are grappled on that hockey field, and then body-checked mercilessly. The girls themselves, as members of the all-India team, represent a nation of profound cultural and political differences, and at first it looks like they can’t unite any more than the disparate Indian states.
The roles of women in society come up, and then are bashed over the head with a folding chair on the patio of a McDonald’s during an old-school hockey brawl.
And Shahrukh Khan plays the role of coach perfectly. He embodies every sports coach I’ve ever met, complete with whistle on a string and stringy forearms. He’s a disgraced hockey player who blew the final shot of the India/Pakistan game, and only the performance of his team of girls will prove his love for his country.
There’s some religious overtones to his persecution (it’s not just the great love that Indians have for field hockey that enrages the crowds). And when you see this Muslim character, played by a Muslim actor, growing teary-eyed at the sight of his nation’s flag, you can only admire the emotional load this movie carries.
Will there ever be an American movie with a Muslim protagonist played by a Muslim actor crying at the sight of the Stars and Stripes?
And will he play hockey?
