Andhra Pradesh

‘Goal’ aimed at the diaspora

KICKING AROUND: Arshad Warsi and John Abraham in a still from ‘Goal’.

Film: Goal (Hindi)

Cast: John Abraham, Arshad Warsi, Bipasha Basu, Boman Irani

Director: Vivek Agnihotri

Riding on the success of ‘Chak De India’, comes Vivek Agnihotri’s ‘Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal’, or simply ‘Goal’, a sports film that would have scored many a point at the box-office had it not been preceded by Shimit Amin’s film.

Practically, it is an English film with a dash of Hindi, catering to the Indian diaspora. Agnihotri’s mind is where the money is: and that comes from the foreign market for more and more Bollywood films.

Agnihotri talks to ‘Indians’ who left India a long time ago! Guys who bear racism abroad so that they can send money home.

Agnihotri’s film scores several laudable points: this ostensible tale of an English football club’s fight for survival is actually about the challenge forces of development are throwing at all of us.

The team has not won a match in memory, and here it has to win the championship if it has to retain possession of the football ground. Arshad as Shaan Ali Khan heads the team, coached by Boman Irani, a former top guy, who fell foul of the society that does not brook non-white winners with ease.

Then there is John Abraham, an ace footballer, who is denied a berth in a local team. Again, you guessed it, because of the colour of his skin.

The narration is not smooth, there are some sequences where everything moves briskly. Then, some when the film stagnates.

Where the film scores is the tension the director Vivek Agnihotri is able to build in the run-up to the final.

ZIYA US SALAM

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