Updated: November 13, 2020 12:17:11 pm
Chhalaang airs on Amazon Prime Video.
Chhalaang Movie Cast: Rajkummar Rao, Nushrratt Bharuccha, Mohd Zeeshan Ayyub, Saurabh Shukla, Ila Arun, Rajeev Gupta, Suparna Marwah, Baljinder Kaur, Garima Kaur, Naman Jain
Chhalaang Film Director: Hansal mehta
Chhalaang Film Rating: Two and a half stars
For some time now, Hansal Mehta-Rajkummar Rao ‘jodi’ has been working smoothly to deliver a series of films that combine meaning with the mainstream. Chhalaang, their new collaboration, takes us to the small town of Haryana, where a group of characters learn to navigate small bumps in the road while assimilating great life lessons and taking a leap of faith.
The first thing that strikes you is the sheer authenticity of the settings and accents. Rao, playing a lazy physical therapy teacher at a local school, leads the way. One of the hardest things to pull off is Haryanvi slang without sounding like a cartoon, and with a few exceptions, that’s not a problem in this set. Not just Rao, but also Baljinder Kaur as his belligerent but loving mother, Naman Jain as his younger brother, and Satish Kaushik as his supportive father all come out as a realistic family unit.
The other, of course, is how good Rao is, providing some nuance to a role with a predictable bow: Mahender, aka Montu Hooda, may be a loser to begin with, but we know he will emerge victorious. When we first meet him, he’s lazy, ignoring the headmistress’s (Arun) exhortations to get in shape. If there were marks for the initiative he shows in leading a ‘sanskriti dal’ backed by a retired teacher (Shukla), who chases kissing partners in parks, he would be top of the class.
But things are about to change, with the arrival of a new independent minded colleague Neelima (Bharuccha), and tough and properly trained senior coach Singh (Ayyub). Who will win the fair maiden, the guy who is a well-known slider champion or the man who is a strict disciplinarian? Ayyub is a solid actor and you wish the conflict between the two was stronger, but it soon fades – Chhalaang knows which side he’s on. Which is what makes it serious, this stacking of chips on the ‘hero’ side so overtly. There is also the improvement of the film with scenes written strictly for laughs, especially those in which the owner of the Halwai store, Dimpy (Sarna) appears, as well as those that come delivering wise homilies.
Mehta, whose fantastic 1992 Scam web series is still making waves, shows an old-fashioned storytelling knack in this one, which reminds you of Dangal in some of its elements: patriarchal Haryana, fighting young women, and the sports arena turning into a testing ground. Rao makes a gentle facilitator of his team, with the full support of ‘Neelima madam’: a girl (Garima Kaur) leads her team, which consists radically of boys and girls, out of trouble. Girls for the win, yay.
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