CAST: Shahid kapoor, Mrunal Thakur, Pankaj Kapoor
DIRECTED BY: Gowtam Tinnanuri
BLUF:
An ex-cricketer struggling to make ends meet, wants to fulfill his child’s wish of getting a Jersey but in the process comes face to face with his heroic past and is forced to decide if he will rise to the occasion and become a symbol of hope or continue to live a life as a loser?
THE MEAT ANDTHE POTATOES
We did not watch the original Jersey only so we could be unbaised about shahid Kapoor’s remake of the Telugu movie.
Apparently, the Hindi remake stuck to a screen-by-screen remake of the OG, which we found strange because even the daily soap remakes have learnt that the Hindi audience do not buy the screen by screen remakes.
Arjun Talwar (Shahid), a 36-year-old from Chandigarh, who quit cricket 10 years ago because he got rejected in the Indian cricket team selection, gets suspended from his because of a corruption case. He now lives with his wife Vidya (Mrunal Thakur), a hotel receptionist, and their son Kittu (Ronit Kamra). Arjun has lost his mojo and is failing to recover from his low esteem while Vidya is working hard to make ends meet causing frustration and friction.
When Kittu asks his father to buy him the Indian cricket team jersey on his birthday, the powerlessness of Arjun’s financial situation frustrates him to the core, and eventually pushes him to chase his dream of joining the Indian cricket team again.
IN THE KNOW
We have seen a lot of underdog stories on screen, what is different about this one? Why would we recommend that you spend your time watching it?
We would have loved to find a reason, but we couldn’t. In the 2 hours and 50 minutes of this movie, we saw the same drama, emotion, action, romance rinse repeat that every such movie has ever sequenced.
It was as if the makers were too scared to experiment with anything other than that what was the tested formula.
The first half of the story, set in the late 1980s, is great memories for anyone who grew up in the 1980’s India. Shahid looks like a Greek God with his long hair and chiseled jawline.
Mrunal dial-ups her doll. What is dampening is the time wasted in explaining their love affair in song and dance making the movie exceptionally long to endure.
The film sticks to its comfort zone and does not move away from a very predictable plot and thought that may be its strength, it is also its weakness. There is not enough depth to the love shown seen between Arjun and Vidhya to contemplate the elopement and the steadfast marriage. Vidhya’s character arc is halfheartedly laid out. Though the rudder of the story is the father-son bond, cricket takes the forefront of expression of his love towards his son. We realize later that the father plays cricket only for his son and leaves him with memories of his father as a hero.
This is a story about fatherhood. Whether it is the relationship between Arjun and Kittu or between Arjun and his father-like coach Balli.
What really works for the movie are these scenes of these two class actors. Shahid Kapoor and his brilliant father Pankaj Kapoor. Masterclass. And those scenes were worth every dollar spent.
