Striker
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Hindi, Drama, 2010, Color
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Born into a poor family, Surya grows up with few luxuries. Poor health keeps him away from school often and that is when his elder brother, Chandrakant, introduces him to carrom. Winning the Junior Carrom Championship at 12 is not enough to keep Surya's fire for the sport burning through adolescence. Hopes for a job in Dubai, replaces the passion for carrom as Surya grows into a young man (Siddharth). Duped by a bogus overseas employment agency, Surya loses all his hard earned money he had saved for going to Dubai. Surya is forced to cross paths with Jaleel (Aditya Pancholi). Since the 70's when the settlements in the ghetto began, Jaleel had acquired a strong hold in the area. He had his hands in every illicit activity since then. Feeding on the weaknesses of people, Jaleel was the self-proclaimed king of Malwani. Reintroduced to Carrom by his childhood friend Zaid, this time to the hustling scene, Surya starts playing again. Being gypped of his hand earned money by the same man who had caused misery for many families; Surya decides to take on Jaleel on his turf...
On one level you have to commend Striker. The film is certainly better than most of the mediocrity you see today in Hindi cinema. And the film does have its gritty moments as it credibly enough recreates Bombay from 1977 to 1992, boasts of some extremely fine on-location photography in the gullies of Malvani village in Malad, Mumbai (you can feel the grime and dirt) and contains some strong performances from its cast. But (that word again!) at the end of the day, the film fails to really come to life or have the impact it should have had.
No doubt, meticulously researched and set in the world of carrom hustling, the screenplay fails to translate well on screen. The slow paced of the narrative, the meandering narrative particularly towards the second half ensure that you are never quite involved in the proceedings as you should be. The film derails towards the climax and the transitions between 1992 and the past and back look arbitrary rather than being thought out and there are times you feel Surya's voice over is used more to link up disjointed strands in the narrative rather than give us any fresh insight into his psyche. Both the romantic sub-plots are extremely weak and appear clumsily inserted into the main plot. The other problem with the film is its timing. The carrom angle notwithstanding, you've seen too many of these sort of films post Satya (1998) and admittedly, that does dilute your viewing of the film.
The performances do lift the film a notch or two. However, you do feel that Siddharth is efficient enough without being outstanding. He has his moments but you can never let go of the fact he is 'acting.' He does play some great carrom, though. Aditya Pancholi makes a remarkable comeback of sorts as the menacing dada Jaleel while Anupam Kher is spot on as the tough new cop out to clean up the area. The women don't have much to do but special mention has to made of Ankur Vikal, who easily steals the show as Surya's good hearted but weak and self-destructive friend, Zaid.
All in all, one has to applaud the production design and cinematographer PS Vinod for his evocative camerawork but at the end of the day, the screenplay lets down the film, which is average at best and little more.
Upperstall review by: TheThirdMan
At the television telecast of 1989 Filmfare Awards recording(which we saw on Doordarshan in December
With the passing of veteran editor and director-Hrishikesh Mukerjhee,the curtain has fallen on an en
To be honest, maybe it's a good thing for LSD that I did not review the film as it did not really ge
good movie.
Thanks everyone for your comments. @Akash: High time for Suriya the actor to choose his films now