Maidaan: Only a Few Highs in Football Legend’s Biopic
Maidaan, starring Ajay Devgan as our very own legendary football coach Syed Abdul Rahim, is an addition to the consistent template of sports biopic. The subject and content may alter, but only in terms of detail. In case the film does not find box-office acceptance, one of the obvious reasons will be the humongous length of the movie. 181 minutes placed alongside commercials punctuates at multiple places, leaving you as exhausted as the protagonist, who succumbed to lung cancer after witnessing a career high when India beat the fancied Korea at the Asian Games.
Yes, India did it many decades ago. Given our position in contemporary football; that could well be called a historical sports biopic that demands as much patience and focus from the viewer as the players, if not more!!
Amit Ravindranath Sharma decided to tell the story of Rahim Saab, as he was reverentially addressed. Despite the choice of the filmmaker and the choice of his subject, the sport in the Indian context has not occupied the popular public space that the game occupies globally. Therefore, the verification quotient of the happenings have to be taken as a given. Also, we glamourise-nay dramatize our part with the wisdom of hindsight and grown affluence. Not very surprising that it all starts in the boardroom.
The predictable power game between the groups managing the spot and the suffocation of the talented is placed with the accuracy of the tested template of the game.
This template strangely suffers an injunction from a district court in Karnataka on allegations of plagiarism at the instance of Kannada script writer Anil Kumar!! So you have Shubhankar (Rudranil Ghosh) always thirsting for Rahim’s blood. Fortunately, for the latter, the national federation is with him. So with a carte blanche Rahim, a resident of Hyderabad, starts his search for talent from Ammiguda in Hyderabad. He goes scouting for native talent. His agony and ecstasy and triumphs and tribulations tell the saga of a sporting hero rare in choice. Heading the camp that wants to see his downfall is sports writer, newspaper magnate Roy (Gajraj Rao). With a little support sometimes, and little support often, Rahim tugs along taking the Indian football team from its pre-footwear era to professional support era. Even as his chosen boys are fighting hard for recognition and success, he is challenged by the system.
Those (and the many more!!) who follow cricket would find this very familiar and don’t have to go beyond Sourav Ganguly. Even film lovers who do not know much of either cricket or football but have seen enough Bollywood sports biopics, including Baagh Milka and Mary Kom, know that the route to the victory stand is played but partly on the play field.
The power game and the system get the better of the game and a few visible defeats the system and dumps Rahim. The rejection comes alongside the medical diagnosis that the veteran is suffering from cancer. As he broods, wife Saira Rahim (Priyamani), who trains hard learning English that awaiting death is no option. She goads him enough when he swallows his pride and seeks a final opportunity to be the Indian coach again. The bottlenecks on the way to the Asian Games at Jakarta, the goof up and the internal animosity brewing against the Indian contingent leading to the loss to Korea and the change of fortunes: Thailand, Japan, Vietnam and the finals against Korea add dramatic value.
As the internal content gets thinner, the filmmaker moves on to portray that only Indians bring humility on the field. He consistently plays the victim card. He also plays along the increasing symptoms of cancer and concludes with acknowledgements: first to Rahim, for being the only true coach who put India on the global map of football, witnessed its high as winner of the gold at the Asian Games and met with his final call in nine months thereafter. He acknowledges the real big names of the past in a concluding written acknowledgment.
Whatever be the virtues of the film, the highs and lows of the drama, you need a Clark Gable to keep you engaged for three hours. Even Raj Kapoor ate humble pie when he bit more than he could chew. Gajraj Rao, as the villain in the piece, does well and adheres to the commands of the script; a tad more than necessary.
As the brooding protagonist, Devgn is exactly what the coach ordered. He navigates from the search of hope to resigned pessimism and frustration but an ever engaging passion for the spot with signature sincerity. He holds the script together which often goes thin.
Like with our sports, this film has its highs – only that they are few and far between.