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 🤯

A few scenes into the movie at the theatre, which in itself is a fluke of a watch without any word of mouth or other marketing, a sudden bout of beauty hit me — the background music. And in an instance, I was sure the movie has an amazing score, by the most amazing A. R. Rahman. (The marketing is that bad — I had no idea about Rahman sir's involvement in this movie.)

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 direction is decent. But the cinematography is mind-blowing. In some of the scenes, the angle and the frame are amazing. The colour correction is also aptly handled, not going over the top and yet, sharing that period vibe. But more than anything, the selection of shots during the pivotal moments in the match(es) is beyond amazing — the way the camera moves with the player or the way the camera pans to show an entire game from one goalpost to the other one, wow 🤯🤩 The art direction and production quality are also top-notch. Since it's a period film, I was quite observant, looking for the odd misses. Could not find much and that is a great thing!

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.

In my very humble opinion, this movie deserves a theatre-watch for multiple reasons — the part of history we might not be aware of, the matches (OMG) and that sense of realisation that all this was once possible.