Almost every sports drama, made in any part of the world and focusing on any sport, has a similar template. A ragtag team of underdogs, almost always based on a real-life story, fights against all odds — and that includes naysayers ranging from the sceptical to the vicious — to emerge triumphant in the end. Tears flow, pride brims over and an entire nation comes around to claim them as its own.
Things are no different in Maidaan. It is a sports drama. It is based on real events. It is about a team of amateurs being banded together despite every kind of opposition possible. It is about them beating the past to carve a chapter of history that only belongs to them.
But Maidaan is a film with a difference. Authenticity is its backbone. It rarely falls prey to a false note. It teases tears without resorting to manipulation. It brings on laughs without falling back on silly tropes.
Ferocious feet. Fiery spirit. Fearless attitude. Feel-good vibe. Football as life. All these elements come seamlessly together in Maidaan, a film that has been in the making for five years, but which makes every minute of its three-hour runtime count.
It tells the tale of the resilient spirit of an unsung hero — Syed Abdul Rahim, the architect of modern Indian football — and through his story, we are introduced to the stories of 16 young men who had in them the belief that they could fight everything in their path to pursue their passion which was to them much more than a profession.
That belief came from Rahim. Played in the Amit Ravindernath Sharma film by the stoic and always dependable Ajay Devgn, Maidaan is propelled by this acting powerhouse who not only renders Rahim’s story palpable and inspirational but also makes us cheer and cry for the boys he coached to global glory.
The film opens with Indian soccer in the doldrums. Having gone down miserably (as miserably as 1-10) in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics to Yugoslavia, the team returns in disgrace with newspaper headlines screaming out: ‘Shame!’ Rahim is the coach who fights bureaucratic hurdles at every corner — mostly in the form of a wily football official, played aptly with slimy menace by Rudranil Ghosh. Another big opposition is in the form of a journalist, played with bullseye antagonism by Gajraj Rao, who brings down Rahim and his morale at every step.
When he points out that he can build a new team that will put India on the football map of the world, there are very few believers. But Rahim powers on. Under him, a team of young boys learn to play with heavy boots for the first time. He discovers champions of the future, including PK Banerjee, Chuni Goswami, Tulsidas Balaram, Fortunato Franco, Peter Thangaraj, Jarnail Singh, Arun Ghosh and many more. More importantly, he makes them believe that they can win, not as the representatives of their different states, but as players for Hindustan.
Certain parts of Maidaan will remind you of Chak De! India. And that is not a bad thing. That seminal underdog sports film with Shah Rukh Khan playing a hockey coach looking for redemption, with the character’s antecedents also present in real life, is still cheered for its feel-good moments, for how it brought together a sceptical nation to cheer the women’s national hockey team to victory. In Maidaan, you have a coach fighting the system all the way, you have him delivering his own ‘sattar minute’ speech (“Ek duniya ka sabse bada number hain aur sabse chhota bhi”) and you have him never giving up.
What sets Maidaan apart is the fact that it also echoes the political history of India at the time. Just a few years old as an independent nation, India’s rise as a football force to reckon with was important in giving a shot in the arm of a new country struggling to find its feet. “Football hamari pehchan bann sakti hain,” believed the unassuming Rahim and he worked towards it till the end, with the Indian soccer team, during his decade-long tenure, even being referred to as the “Brazil of Asia”.
Rahim’s personal tragedy, the individual stories of the boys — Chaitanya Sharma as PK and Amartya Ray as Chuni stand out, with every actor in this ensemble being a handpicked gem — and the aspirations of a nation blend together to make a powerful watch which will make you cry and cheer in same measure.
Maidaan’s strength lies in the authentic feel it brings to its football matches. “Cinema halls will be converted into stadiums,” were director Sharma’s words to t2 in an interview last week. He lives up to them. Viscerally filmed, raw in power and energy and capturing both the mood on the feet and the faces of its actors, this is some of the best camerawork seen in Hindi cinema in a long time. Veteran Tushar Kanti Ray weaves his magic in the quieter moments — that frame of Rahim’s wife Saira, payed by a beautifully restrained Priyamani seen crying through the door even as her husband scripts history stays on — as does the magical craft that Fyodor Lyass, Tussaduq Hussain and Christopher Lloyd bring to the match moments, especially the tense and taut final showdown at the 1962 Asian Games. Another big strength of Maidaan is the screenplay (Saiwyn Quadras excels) as well as the deft editing (by Dev Rao Jadhav and Shahnawaz Mossani) that ensures there is never a dull moment. A.R. Rahman’s tunes — especially the pulsating anthem Team India hai hum — are the cherry on top.
“Football hi sirf ek game hain jismein kismat pairon se likhi jaati hain,” says Maidaan. After Rahim, Indian football has never qualified for the Olympics. We never gave Syed Abdul Rahim what he deserved. Let us give Maidaan, which brings him to the forefront, what it deserves. Three hours of your time and a lifetime of memories in return.
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Maidaan releases on April 11, with paid previews starting
this evening
