This movie is an interesting biopic on Vijay Barse who takes it upon himself to involve slum boys and girls in football to wean them away from anti social activities like theft and violence. (There was a movie sometime back where Sanjay Dutt goes to Afghanistan and encourages young boys to play cricket to prevent them from joining terrorist related activities.)
Amitabh Bachchan plays the protagonist as only he can, in his trademark style, getting the slum kids together, training them in football, encouraging and counselling them. The way he gets them addicted to the game even by paying them is well shown (There is also a bonus for his fans by way of a baritone speech delivered to the judge on encouraging slum kids to join mainstream society including sports.). Understandably Amitabh faces hurdles and objection from all quarters specially from the school when he allows the dirty, unkempt, badly behaved slum kids to scramble over the wall and jump into the school premises. Amitabh somehow pacifies the school authorities and continues training the slum kids to make first a national slum soccer team, then an international team.
The movie's length of 2hrs 56 mins is a negative point mainly because there is too much of unnecessary detailed filming of some scenes. ( The old method of "dissolve" and new method of" jump cut " are always available). Scenes of sob stories could have been reduced. The attention span of modern Indian audiences has now been reduced to 100 minutes and anything more than that makes it a drag unless it has a huge canvas. Nevertheless director Nagaraj Manjule has done a fairly good job and has managed to make the scenes engaging. He has made an effective use of the camera and there are some splendid shots. ( He has also done a cameo as " Hitler bhai"). Amitabh is good as usual. Among the slum kids Ankush Gedam has a well written role and is impressive. The supporting cast is also impressive. Music by Ajay Atul helps to build the atmosphere and tempo. The is a number like "zingat" too.
The movie's length of 2hrs 56 mins is a negative point mainly because there is too much of unnecessary detailed filming of some scenes. ( The old method of "dissolve" and new method of" jump cut " are always available). Scenes of sob stories could have been reduced. The attention span of modern Indian audiences has now been reduced to 100 minutes and anything more than that makes it a drag unless it has a huge canvas. Nevertheless director Nagaraj Manjule has done a fairly good job and has managed to make the scenes engaging. He has made an effective use of the camera and there are some splendid shots. ( He has also done a cameo as " Hitler bhai"). Amitabh is good as usual. Among the slum kids Ankush Gedam has a well written role and is impressive. The supporting cast is also impressive. Music by Ajay Atul helps to build the atmosphere and tempo. The is a number like "zingat" too.