The quest for 'GOLD'!

Nothing, easier than sports to unite a country. Nothing easier than to do it on the Independence Day.  15th August - what a perfect day to release Gold. As I drove past traffic intersections with street urchins selling everything in tri-color from flags to balloons to pins, the buildup of national pride was inevitable. I was all charged up for ‘Gold’.

Gold, is a fictional dramatized recount of the first time Free India won an Olympic God in hockey. It is the story of a few men and their dream – to win the Gold medal and salute the rising tri color while the national anthem -Jana Gana Mana plays in the background. It is a story of two generations, 10 years apart, one who played for British India and one who will play for free India for the first time.  Gold, is that journey from the 1936 Olympics in Germany to the one in England in 1948. Throughout this journey the story of the rest of the cast builds up with historical events playing catalyst. The story is so beautifully intertwined in the historical time lime that it makes it believable. And not once, does it loose pace. 

What is Gold? Gold is a sports film, and like any other Sports film (Chakk de, Bhaag Milkha and the likes) it too banks on some stereotypical narratives - politics at the management level, egoistic transactions between team mates, and nail-biting last-minute finishes. Gold refreshingly however is different in how it talks about Pakistan. How many times have you seen the audience feel sorry for the loss of Pakistan? Well, this one does. Contrary to typical Bollywood movies where Pakistan bashing draws all the applause, this one makes you realize how similar we are. A small digression – I live in Dubai and my son’s best friend Ali, is from Pakistan. I once asked him how Ali became his friend and his immediate answer was “Cricket”. While students from other nationalities played football and basketball, Ali and my son bonded over cricket. The movie reinforces these common roots.

As for the cast, unlike sports films where the hero plays a pumped-up sports hero, Akshay Kumar plays a Bengali team manager whose love for his bottle is second only to his love for the game. He plays more with his Dhoti and his bottle of Daaru, a la Devdas 😊. Mouni Roy plays his wife with natural Bengali flair. She plays the nagging yet supportive wife with conviction. The rest of the cast that makes up the team play their part as directed - the aristocratic Raghubir Pratap Singh (Amit Sadh) and the hot tempered Himmat Singh (Sunny Kaushal – brother of Vicky Kaushal and an equally promising actor) play pivotal roles in the young generation. Samrat (Kunal Kapoor) and Imtiaz Ali (Vineet Kumar Singh) play the mature senior players who provide solid support not just to the team but to the movie as well. Akshay may be the center forward of this team, but it is the whole cast (under the able direction of Reema Kagti) that bring the Gold for this movie.

The end is predictable but moves the audience, literally to their feet – and voluntarily - for the national anthem. It also ends with a good piece of advice – “A country is made not by it’s borders, but by the common dream and vision of its people.” Let this thought and feeling of national pride stay beyond the theater and beyond 15^th August! Vande Mataram.

Rating: 4*