Maidaan Review - Ajay Devgn Steals The Show In Overlong Sports Drama

Maidaan Review: Ajay Devgn is finally back in a character-driven role, and it's a big, big pleasure to see him doing such a role and so fantastically. That's what he is best at. He keeps changing genres and directors, so the search for such amazing character-driven roles takes longer than expected. Better late than never, they say. We all agree. However, the stature of this kind of performance deserves high-resolution filmmaking, which is missing in Maidaan. Why? Amit Sharma should better answer that. First of all, sports dramas can't be 3-hours long unless you have a pace and narrative like Oppenheimer that can hold the audience that long, because sports dramas usually come with certain cliches that are too old but inevitable. It's about how to use them. Maidan too has similar cliches that we have seen in many sports dramas before, which could have been used in a better way to provide a gripping cinematic experience. Ajay Devgn holds the fort all alone with his outstanding portrayal of Syed Abdul Rahim, and he alone is worth your penny.The film is based on the life of Syed Abdul Rahim (Ajay Devgn) and his career, which defined the golden era of Indian football, or, better said, the only golden era of Indian football. Starting with the 1952 Olympic Games, the film introduces us to the dark days of Indian football when the team was losing matches in one-sided encounters, the coach didn't have the authority to choose players, and the committee members were more interested in food and discussions over religion and how local boys should get more chances because football is popular in the state. Despite that, Syed demands a complete charge, and he gets it. He elects players from different parts of the country and makes a team that goes on to defeat Australia in 1956's Olympics. Team India's performance improves, but the medal box remains empty. A self-goal done by mistake throws India out of the 1960 Olympics, and Rahim Saab is asked to resign from his post. He then learns about his lung cancer and demands one more chance to coach Team India because he may not have time after that. How Rahim and his team create history at the Asian Games 1962 against all odds is what awaits you in the rest of the film.Saiwyn Quadras, Akash Chawla, and Arunava Joy Sengupta's script could have made a nice film, but the screenplay takes too long to come to the finale. In some scenes, you don't even see the action, as the director is more interested in showing wide shots (unclear) and the faces of commentators. When "It's a Goal," we should have been shown the action, how it's done, and then the reactions, but instead we get to see the faces of commentators. Come on, you can't destroy your best content like this, or is it looking like "too much sports" in a sports biographical? Most of the screen time in the second half is covered with Rahim's coughing. Yes, we all know he has cancer. Now, can you please stop showing us that every 5 minutes? Since when has the Finance Minister started making national decisions on a journalist's suggestion? Was it really like that? If yes, then Moraraji Desai has just been destroyed in Maidaan. An Indian sportsman speaks against the Indonesian government, but the Team Korea gets all the crowd's support. How? I mean, thank God, Indonesia was banned. Things are either too out of league or predictable, and that's where this overlong narrative starts losing you.On the positive side, we have Ajay Devgn, the actor, leading the film with his impeccable acting skills. Usually, actors need dialogue to show their acting talent, but this man, this legend, did it without speaking a word. The best of his acting scenes in the film have no dialogue. This man is just coughing, and I was like, "Give him all the awards, man." Watch out for that interval block and his speech in the dressing room; you'll acknowledge his greatness yet again. Gajraj Rao plays a very peculiar character. He is a journalist, yet he is unaware of how to write news and headlines. He loves football but isn't happy with our victories. Why? Because he cares about Bengal more than India. I wish I could have told Mr. Ghosh that he was a better politician than a journalist and football lover, and in fact, he wasn't a politician at all. The lady's support from Priyamani is overwhelming. I didn't expect her to be so fluent with her lines, since half of the Bollywood actresses struggle with their accents and clarity of voice. "I passed away in English." One-liners like these from her add some fun elements too. There is a big supporting cast, including team players, and everyone has done well.Maidaan has a few problems with its production design, as they fail to create that era in some scenes. The foreign scenes were easy to recreate, but Indian cities and their presentation were difficult, and that's why they were somewhat problematic. The background score and music both work as per the situation. The songs only stretch the narrative a little longer, when it's already too long for a standard Bollywood movie runtime. Tushar Kanti Ray and Fyodor Lyass have done some experiments with the camera, and the results are damn impressive. The follow-on and wide shots in the last two matches were superbly shot, edited, and directed. That straight-goal scene in the climax was just mind-blowing. But again, as we know, the cliches spoil some of your excitement, and you are left on a tepid note when things were actually heating up. There has to be someone devilish in the committee; the politicians have to be exposed; the team members should have at least two fights in the group and practice sessions; the hero must be kept away and then come back; there has to be an emotional angle to his life (medical or past trauma); and last but not least, the team has to win against all odds. Tell me which one you haven't seen before. Maidaan covers all cliches when they have become dated by at least a decade. But can we really blame them if all these things were true? We can't, but yes, we can blame the execution.Amit Sharma's direction should have been better for the kind of story he was handling. In the first hour, almost every dramatic scene has that loud and outdated background score, which sounds irritating. Like I said, sports dramas can't be too long, but Maidaan takes an hour more than what's needed because it is a biographical drama too. Rahim's personal life needs to be known, but not in this way. The pick-up point of the second half goes flat with Rahim's trauma and regretful life. When you watch a film like Chariots of Fire (1981), you don't even realise it when you finish watching it. The man's last race is so smooth and flawless that it hypnotises you, and you don't even look at your watch. Here, in Maidaan, you have to look at your wrist to check when we are getting to the finale. That's where Amit Sharma fails as a director. Nevertheless, the last 20–25 minutes have some whistle-worthy moments that can turn theatres into stadiums for a while, and the inspirational angle adds more to your viewing experience. So, as a whole, Maidaan should still be a one-time watch for people who aren't familiar with Hollywood and foreign-language sports dramas because it has all the Indian masala you expect from a typical mainstream film. Sharma missed an opportunity to create a cinematic classic, though, and sadly, we don't have many Syed Abdul Rahims in India to get such stories again and again.