Review of new Movie: 'Gavaskar'

'Gavaskar' is the new movie directed by Bharat Cricketeshwar who enjoys tremendous popularity among Indians in home and abroad. However, this time he rather made a mess of it by presenting a too complex plot for the intelligence level of average Indian junta. The film's story is based on the age-old drama of Father-Son relationship but contains too much of suspense, action, politics, triumph, loss and last, but not the least, cricket. The frequent changes in location among Mumbai, Delhi, Haryana, Kolkata also added to confusion that did not allow us to follow the story link.

There are 4 main characters in the story: Kapil Dev, Sunil Gavaskar, Sharad Powar and a young Rohan Gavaskar. The film starts with a patriotic song sequencing the rise of a young Kapil Dev nicknamed Haryana Hurricane taking the world cricket by storm and leading India to a complete world dominance (save that part of the unhappy world where people do not play cricket and do not enjoy life). It then chronicles the long, slow but bitter battle of ego between Kapil, the newly found storm-like rustic messiah of Indian cricket and Sunil Gavaskar, the best batsman of the world of his time representing a slower and sophisticated version of classic cricket. The scene when Sunil was pelted with oranges at Eden Gardens for dropping the Haryana all-rounder was very well represented.

.... Many years passed after that. In the meantime, Sunil's son Rohan grew up to become a cricketer but not good enough to get a permanent place in Indian cricket team. Following advice from his illustrious father, Rohan left Mumbai in 1994. Rohan took a long long train journey to finally arrive in Kolkata and started a new life there.

Time went by ... Kapil, by then, got settled in his hotel business in Delhi. Sunil became a great commentator of cricket and started holding important posts in BCCI, the regulating body of cricket in India. Soon, Sharad Power becomes president of BCCI and his politics started playing them against each other. In 2006, Pawar sacked Sunil as chairman of the National Cricket Academy — a post to which he had been appointed by Jagmohan Dalmiya — replacing him with Kapil. In 2007, he sacked Kapil, too, as punishment for joining the rebel cricket league, ICL and entrusted Sunil to format its own league that can challenge the rebel league and also made him BCCI’s technical committee chairman.

... But Sunil was not getting along well with vice-president Lalit Modi. The politics with all its dirtiness continued .... Finally, after a grueling 3 hours, the junior Gavaskar, Rohan, takes the stage. He, coming out of his cool manner, simply throws away his Bengal team bat from Howrah Bridge into Ganga (too dramatic depiction!), takes a flight to Mumbai and comes straight to Kapil's office and signs up with the Kapil-led rebel league just when the board had pitted his father against his great rival in Indian cricket’s biggest turf battle.

Kapil gives his big world-winning hug to Gavaskar -- the Junior. Gavaskar --the Senior does not appear in the last scene. An inset shows him laughing all the way into Wangkhede stadium. Another inset shows Powar pulling his hair and cursing himself saying,"Why the hell am I here? Simple politics is better and simpler than Cricket politics. Madam was right. Indeed she was."

Despite its complex story, the film would surely be able to capture the imagination of indian audience for the next few months. Next time though, we hope, Mr. Cricketeshwar would consider a simpler script without any villainous character which can lead India to the victory podium of World cup 2011. He should learn some tricks of success from the other hit sports film of the year 'Chak de India'.