Iqbal

After hearing a lot of good reviews about this one, I finally got to watch "Iqbal" yesterday. It was a simple movie with a powerful subject. Set in a backdrop of a small village, the movie focuses on how a physically challenged guy (deaf & dumb) works towards his dream of becoming a Cricket player and play for his country. The role of Iqbal was well played by Shreyas Talpade, who did a commendable job. He has wonderfully expressed the protagonist’s passion for cricket. All the characters in the movie were well etched especially the roles of the younger sister of Iqbal who helps him in all his efforts and his mother, who encourages him to achieve his dreams. Naseeruddin Shah plays the pivotal character of a drunkard guy who trains Iqbal to improve his skills and helps him to attain his goals. Kapil Dev also has a brief appearance in the climax of the movie. On the whole, “Iqbal” is a fantastic effort by Nagesh Kukunoor. Kudos to him!

What prompted me more to write this post was not just the movie itself but also the Filmfare awards of this year. There was no award for this movie. Not even the “Critics Award”. While “Black”, which has the same base story line of “Iqbal”, a physically challenged person trying to achieve something big in life, won 11 awards…there was not even a single award for “Iqbal”. I have nothing against “Black”; in fact I thought the movie was a brilliant effort. But in my opinion, “Iqbal” definitely deserves equal recognition. In a country like India, where Cricket is considered a “Religion” than just a sport, how many movies are made based on it? Leave alone Cricket, any other sports for that matter. There are so many sports based movies in Hollywood that are just amazing. “Remember the Titans”, “Coach Carter”, “Rudy” to name a few. So finally, when someone does take an effort to present a good movie with a sports subject, they don’t get recognized at all?

This news in Sify says that all young hero’s in Kollywood are not able to do new films as they are out of scripts. Why can’t they just get out of the whole “masala” stuff and do a movie based on a sports subject. Now, I am not talking about movies like “Ghilli” where “Kabadi” was just a miniscule part of the movie hardly having anything to do with the actual story. I am talking about movies like “Iqbal” here. Will any top hero be bold enough to do something like this in Kollywood? I can just hope!