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The biggest challenge which faces underdog-to-champion stories is to refresh the biggest trope of them all, because the very theme is a trope. And that’s the kind of story that Kabir Khan has been doing successfully, the last of them being ‘83, the story of India winning the World Cup that year, making history.
The inspiring-but-forgotten story of Murlikant Petkar, the first Indian to win a paralympic swimming gold (Heidelberg, 1972), fits right into Khan’s filmography. It also fits into resurrecting the lost-in-the-mists-of-time hero theme, which has also been getting a lot of airing recently.
Petkar’s journey to the gold medal in Heidelberg, which he set his eyes on as a child in Sangli, Maharashtra, is the stuff of miracles: ‘Chandu Champion’ tells us that he did not let anything– grinding poverty, being laughed at by friends and family, and horrific injuries in the ‘65 war which left him paralysed waist downwards– come in the way of his attaining his life-long goal.
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Kartik Aaryan goes full-tilt at playing Murlikant Petkar. It is a demanding role, which follows the film’s arc, as it recreates its subject’s life from being a puny ‘pehelwan’ in his village ‘akhada’, to being a jawan in the Army where he trains to be a boxer and nearly wins a top prize, to his overcoming the constraints of his disability. And Aaryan does make you root for his character despite the film’s falling into declarative, underlined patches, of which there are a lot, because it is that kind of film.
There was a time when Khan would give us the smaller, delightful moments within the broad brush-strokes, so characteristic of his earlier filmmaking: the last time when that happened was the 2015 ‘Bajrangi Bhaijan’, which still remains Salman Khan’s best outing. I also really liked ‘83, despite its calling-attention flourishes, because of Ranveer Singh’s bravura performance, and, of course, the way that win was brought back to us, which not just changed the way India was perceived in the cricketing world, but gave us champions of all time.
The difficulty in dramatising a life, making it palatable to the mainstream, are evident right away in the way Chandu Champion is mounted: it’s handsome, it has ambition, and its commitment is unwavering, but so much of it hovers so close to being a template, that you can see the strain in trying to make it new.
Bhuvan Arora, who was the best thing in ‘Farzi’ as Shahid Kapoor’s best friend, is back here as Fauji Garnail Singh, doing more of the same: the day Bollywood dispenses with this BFF role would be the day it really grows up, because then the hero would have to do solo heavy lifting.
The film perks up when Vijay Raaz’s boxing coach Tiger Ali arrives on the scene. He’s very much in the irascible-get-out-of-my-face-you-fool kind of coach that both Hollywood and Bollywood love, but Raaz is saved by his light-on-his-feet air: the nicest parts of the film have him and Aaryan, accompanied by Arora, in and around the ring.
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A brief appearance by an attractive TV reporter (Borse) is a bit of a relief in this all-male movie, the other female roles being divvied up between Chandu’s teary mother, and loud nurse. The popping up, briefly, of Sonali Kulkarni as a journalist, makes you want to see more of her.
This is the kind of film whose treatment, where everything you see is supported by dialogue, and lashings of obvious humour, makes it less than what it could have been: the beats are predictable, even as it gives us a likeable, inspirational hero we’ve never heard about.
Chandu Champion
Director – Kabir Khan
Cast – Kartik Aaryan, Bhuvan Arora, Vijay Raaz, Yashpal Sharma, Bhagyashri Borse, Aniruddh Dave, Shreyas Talpade, Sonali Kulkarni
Rating – 2.5/5
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