Review of Dangal (2016) by Aditya R — 28 Dec 2016

Short Review-.

First, they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. - Mahatma Gandhi.

Long Review-.

Some movies cast heroes, some give chance to new entrants to emerge as heroes. Rarely do we come across a movie where heroes do not just emerge on screen but off it too. Dangal is one such movie where we have a lot of off-screen superstars.

Five minutes into the movie you see three names. One, Arjun Awardee Kripa Shankar Bishnoi as wrestling coordinator and other two, Prakash Bhardwaj and Sunita Sharma as Haryanvi dialect coach. How often do you see unusual credits like that?

Do we ever realize that how many movies became successful solely because of a man called Mukesh Chhabra was behind those movies? It's high time we start understanding their contributions too. For them, this movie started a year or at least six months before they actually started shooting. This movie is the result of endless efforts of all those off-screen superstars.

Dangal is quite ok at being a sports movie. But it still is one of the best movies of this year. Probably because it doesn't want to be just a sports movie and it actually is not. One may find some striking similarity between Dangal and any other Indian sports film but we need to understand that most sports film progress in more or less same fashion. It's Nitesh Tiwari who turns a simple story into a powerful film and he has his past record of doing so. Chiller Party and Bhootnath Returns, two movies with the ordinary story but the extraordinary execution. Same is the case here. Yes, he used his cinematic liberties at some places to make it a little more dramatic than the actual events.

The movie documents a remarkable tale of how women of Haryana, the state which is notorious for being most misogynist state of our country, blossomed in a sport which is dominated by men. And the best thing, it is not limited to it. Dangal is the story of a father and his unending quest of bringing glory to the country. Yes, to the country and not to self. And in the process to achieve that feat, it shows the struggle of a father who went against all odds which circumstances has thrown at him. Be it physical, mental or cultural. He waited from black to salt and pepper till gray. He waited from being a masculine senior wrestler to being a heavy belly senior citizen. He has been ridiculed but he never left his dream. And he is not doing this just to satisfy his male ego but to bring gold for the country. It's about equality, gender equality. It's about realizing that a woman is not just as good as a man but she has the potential of outperforming him too and she is doing it at the time and again. It's about woman empowerment. Emerging strong from a soil, which is still khap-ridden, where honor killing is practiced and the birth of a girl child is still looked down upon is not an easy thing to do. It's about that never say die attitude which at the end always result in victory, again not just on but off the screen too.

A lot has been talked about Aamir and two (Read Four) leading ladies (Fatima, Sanya & Zaira, Suhani) of the film and they lived up to every hype they were surrounded with. It's good to see that Aamir never let his superstar aura overshadow the performances of girls. And not just performances, even in general the two ladies has been portrayed as the face of Dangal.

A big shout out to two actors who stayed away from limelight all this while but acted tremendously well. Sakshi Tanwar, who, in spite of getting lesser dialogues, killed with her expressions and body language. She definitely is the first person to gloriously come out of Balaji camp since Ronit Roy. Aparshakti Khurrana, narrator and supporting character who has a responsibility of movie far more than a normal supporting actor in a Hindi movie has, and he managed to act really well. For Girish Kulkarni, I have seen better of him, far better.

Dangal is an average sports drama, a good biopic, and a brilliant movie. Powered by stellar performances and terrific direction, this movie is the result of sweat, tears, and broken bones. While the movie ends on a happy note it leaves several questions for us behind.

1. A biopic is good but why we always need one to feel proud of our stars?

2. How many sports film do we need to make those committees to pass funds to a non-cricketing sport?

3. Why we only preparing our athletes (Or are we?) to win any medal and not Gold medal?

4. Five years down the line will we remember Geeta and Babita Phogat for 2010 and 2014 commonwealths or will we remember her for Dangal?

On a lighter note, Dangal is for everyone. It is a non-masala commercial movie. So when we have helped some senseless movies to score big on box office, why not help this one which actually deserves.