Maidaan Cast: Ajay Devgn, Priyamani, Gajraj Rao, Devyansh Tripathi, Nitanshi Goel, Meenal Patel, Aayesha Vindhara, Baharul Islam, Rudranil Ghosh, Baharul Islam
Crew:
Written by Saiwyn Quadras, Ritesh Shah, Siddhant Mago, Akash Chawla, Arunava Joy Sengupta, Atul Shahi, Aman Rai
Cinematography by Tushar Kanti Ray, Fyodor Lyass (sports)
Edited by Dev Rao Jadhav, Shahnawaz Mosani (sports)
Music by AR Rahman
Produced by Zee Studios, Fresh Lime Films, Akash Chawla, Arunava Joy Sengupta, Boney Kapoor
Directed by Amit Sharma
Maidaan Movie Rating: 3.25/5
Maidaan, a sports drama and biopic of Great Indian Football Coach Syed Abdul Rahim, had been pushed back into production hibernation for past three years due to various reasons. Even though delayed, the sports drama gathered good buzz and hype prior to the release. Ajay Devgn kind of an actor trying his hand at sports biopic did increase curiosity among the audiences. On top of it all, Ace composer AR Rahman composed music for the film and India’s forgotten football glory as plot, added to the anticipation among the viewers. The movie, finally, released on 10th April 2024 for Eid weekend. Let’s discuss about the film in detail.
Plot:
Indian Football Coach Syed Abdul Rahim(Ajay Devgn) is highly successful and from 1951, he starts building national football team to make invincible. His clever formations and defensive, aggressive strategies inspire young players from different backgrounds to perform at their best. Bengal lobby doesn’t like his going influence in the National team and him bringing players from small towns also hurt them. Before Indian team goes to Olympics qualifiers, SA Rahim makes harsh comments towards Sports Journalist Roy Chaudhary(Gajraj Rao).
He works with influential Shubhankar(Rudranil Ghosh) to dismiss Rahim out. At this point, he gets to know that he is suffering with lung cancer. He decides to stay away from the game but his wife Saira(Priyamani) pushes him to go back to achieve his dream. Hence, he takes the help of Anjan to coach National team for 1962 Asian Games. How he tackles the issues and take Indian team to the finals forms the rest of the story. Watch the movie to know how the events unfold.
Analysis:
Ajay Devgn has given one of his best performances in this film. He makes us believe in the character and the inspiration behind him to achieve his goals. Especially, his performance in the final few moments stay with us after watching the movie. He could be contender for many awards next year. His eyes and voice modulation stands out in this film. Priyamani did well but she did get as many memorable moments as she might have wished for. Ensemble of players did really well and looked like a football team at the prime of their abilities. Gajraj Rao did give a standout performance and others are good too.
Technically, movie is quite strong as cinematography, mainly during football matches stand out. Even the sound design, production design to bring 50’s and 60’s also work. But the prosthetics used for aging actors did not work and it did look artificial at places. AR Rahman’s background score and music gave required boost to the climatic portions and emotional high moments. He showcased how he can elevate a good scene and situation in his typical style, once again.
Despite cliches in writing, director Amit Sharma worked really hard to keep the pacing intact and work out every emotion in the desired way. His intent to hold everything tight and execute the football matches at International standards make this film unique among sports dramas. Still, the known troupes and slow pacing does work against the film, at few places. The honest intents and execution of matches, performances of actors make this movie watchable. A crisper runtime with some more innovative ideas in screenplay, character designing might have made it as good as Chak De India. Still, movie is an easy watch for all sports drama film lovers.
Positives:
Ajay Devgn performance
Ensemble cast performances
Honest intentions in execution
Football matches
Engaging characters
AR Rahman’s rousing score
Negatives
Could have been crisper
Prosthetics does take us out of the time period
Predictability
A slightly slow narrative
Maidaan Movie Bottom-line: Watchable Sports Biopic
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