Must Watch Maidaan - movie review

But c'mon, such a story, soaked in a reality of a surprise for an Indian Football Fan, should have been promoted better. And that's the biggest weakness of this movie — the marketing. This movie lost big-time to a bad or let's say, non-existent marketing.

Let's talk about the movie now!

Is this the best sports movie ever? No

Is this one of the best sports movie in recent times? Definitely

Is it better than Chak De, because let's be honest, it's become our sports-movie-from-India benchmark? Almost. Yes, almost, and some scenes, might actually be better 🫡

Honestly, there was a point in the movie, in a certain match in the second half, where I forgot that I'm watching a movie. It felt like an actual football match, with real emotions, on the ground, and in the theatre. By the end of the movie, I could feel moist eyes around me. And not sure about others but I felt a sense of hollowness, after knowing that we once held our head that high in Football as the Indian team 🫡

Maidaan is a tale soaked in truth about the state of Football in India, the politics and struggle of the game, a decade beyond our country's freedom. It is an account of the football players playing the sports without any shoes, and how we once had a football team capable enough to participate handsomely in not one, but multiple Olympics 🤯

The first half of the movie, is closer to what we call the first act in basic storytelling. Unlike other movies, the second and third act of the story are told in the second half of the movie. This also makes the movie, especially the second half, seem longer and stretched.

The movie suffers the most from the lack of powerful dialogues. I cannot recall a single one from the movie. Sad! The acting ranges from decent to powerful, given countless characters dashing in and out of the screen as the movie paces. Ajay Devgan gets a strong character role after long, and he makes up for the lack of interesting dialogues with his eyes and body language. Priyamani, who was a last-minute replacement, is quite convincing. Gajraj Rao, who rose to stardom through the director's last movie (Badhaai Ho — Amit Ravindernath Sharma), was decent at best. The antagonist was clearly not as powerful. The actors playing Jarnail Singh, P. K. Banerjee and Chuni Goswami are superb. I sincerely hope their acting career gets a great boost after this movie. I'm no expert but I felt that there was careful attempt to get the dictions right for most regions, in or out of India.