Carrom-a-Cola
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Striker
Cast: Siddharth, Ankur Vikal
Director: Chandan Arora
Rating: Three stars
Scream, life’s no dream. When his sister is killed in a communal riot, he is outraged to the point of crying out to the gods. In fact, whenever the carrom champ lets his frustrations out, he comes across as the New Age angry man – without possessing a stupendous height, powder keg muscles and savage snarls. He’s quite real, as vulnerable as any wayfarer on the street.
Quite clearly, the characterisation of the carrom-board gambler is the most unvarnished element of Chandan Arora’s Striker; the other uncompromised factor is the use of indoor as well as outdoor locations, devoid of the artifice of glamour lighting and floral set décor. A booze joint almost emits the stink of santra-mosambi country liquor. And there are authentic allusions like the one to the Najeevan Society terrace in the heart of central Mumbai, which was once reported to be the hotbed of illicit matka, card games and miscellaneous underworld sport.
The plot hinging on two buddies, Surya (Siddharth) and Zaid (Ankur Vikal), is evidently inspired by a real life story, and in a way almost Martin Scorsesean. The mean streets of Malvani, a distant suburb of Mumbai, as depicted by Arora has no option but to breed losers. And when the desperadoes play too fast-`n’-furiously, tragedy is endemic. Perhaps in recent years, in Bombay-produced cinema Mahesh Manjrekar’s Vaastav has stated this, with an unequalled lacerating effect. Arora’s effort does leave an impact but the wallop is not as strong as it could have been. A pity.
Surprisingly, this appears to be because of the frequent obscure and confusing editing. Arora is a professional editor who turned to direction with Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon and Main Meri Patni aur Woh .Without getting into their merits – or the lack of them – suffice it to say that at least they were sharply cut and narrated coherently. Um, what happened? The shift back from the 1992-’93 communal riots to an earlier decade is, alas, much too choppy. So at some point, you quit figuring out the logistics, to concentrate on the meat and potatoes of the story, and ignore the swirling gravy. Burp.
After the convoluted opening reels, you do go with Surya and Zaid, facing their private hells, at home and outside. Surya has been cool at the carrom board since his pre-teenage days. He is now hustled into showdowns with tough-guy contestants at low as well high stake games masterminded by one of those scarfaced underworld dons (Aditya Pancholi, with a Y-shaped gash across his cheek). Carrom as a near-gladiator sport, you are told without mincing any words, thrives alongside a parallel cocaine trade.
Plus, no mealy-mouthed apologies are made. Surya is a hard-drinker and Zaid is deep into the drug world. Their friendship, never exaggerated or trivialised, is believable, ridden with violent quarrels and what-the-hell-let’s-patch-up moments.
So far, so tough. Arora falters though, when he shows Surya so violently upset one night that he rapes the booze joint girl (Padmapriya, quite Tabu-like). Very fantasy-like, he marries her soonest. Abracadabra. Is life in the demi-monde truly that simple? In addition, the sub-strand about the communal riots is left dangling, tackled mainly through the attempts by an upright cop (Anupam Kher, credible) to control the volatile situation by barking orders at drunken and politically engineered police subordinates. Oof.
Too much is being sought to said here; more than sufficient comments on theconditions in Malvani could have been asserted through the politics of the carrom board tournaments. And woe-ho-ho, the suspense and tension of the board game aren’t exploited to the degree of pushing the viewer to the edge of the seat.
Reservations abound. On the upside, Arora demonstrates that he can extract edgy visuals from his cinematographer P S Vinod. The dialogue is correctly colloquial throughout.
In the difficult lead role Siddharth is excellent, eschewing glamour, sporting cheap flashy shirts, and going ballistic when he has to. As his buddy, Ankur Vikal, is absolutely extraordinary – where was this natural-born actor hiding all these years?
As the mandatory mom in the kitchen, Seema Biswas is wasted. Vidya Malvade as Surya’s sister and Anup Soni as the Mohnish-Behl-like Big Brother are impressive, and Aditya Pancholi strikes a subtle degree of menace.
All said and seen, Striker lets off steam, like a pressure cooker come to boil. Now only if it had been smoothly edited, you would have said, “Wow.” In its current shape, you end up saying, “Hey, not bad” about this Carrom-a- Cola.
So, do it again Chandan Arora…but look at the final edit objectively. Please.
Tags: Chandan Arora, Khalid Mohamed, Movie Review, Siddharth, Striker, Striker Movie Review
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Rahul Dholakia
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Varma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Sachin Kundalkar
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Ah!interesting take on the movie Khalid Saab.Looking forward to the same for the weekend.Hoping the movie turns out well for all who are associated with the film.
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nice movie…must see..
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I don’t remember exactly…but I think this is the highest Khalid Sir has rated any film on PFC…planning to watch this over the weekend
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Highest rated movie was Paa. three and half stars
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Wonderful review Khalid saab…
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Oi, what’s happening out here?..the guys who would just jump down my (deep) throat for just existing have gone with the wind.Missing the brickbats about making lousy movies (so how dare I write about any film?), about being old old old (not gold) and generally about not responding to the provocations.
Hell, I miss being provoked. Keeping silent after that is tuff but believe me, close to zendom. Go figure…or are the former PRs, web hackers and i know which journos, out for a sabbatical? The fun never stops..hopefully!
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A Rann review by you on PFC would have got what you desire
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Vinay- Check this out- Khalid saab has posted the same long ago
http://passionforcinema.com/satya-shivam-mediadom/
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My bad. Didnt realize that, inspite of having read that one. Sorry khalid
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I am not able to figure out just by looking at your username – are you the author of this blog, or are you a different person by the same name?
In any case, I’ll probably watch this film, based on this review.
Thanks!
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we r not as blind as you .. we do throw brickbats when something mediocre is thrusted on us. one thing more its not HT or some other magazine where an one can crap a load a shit and can easily get away with it.. its a public forum get used to it .
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I hope everyone knows its not the author of this blog post who has commented ..
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we will be back khalid when you give “My name is Khan” 5 *s.
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Khalid,
:yahoo:
The fact that you are not receiving many brickbats with this review goes on to show that insaan boora nahi hota, uske kaam boore hote hain..
You have played safe with this review. Must have been tough not writing in the style that has been with you for 30 years. Proves that an old monkey can learn new tricks. Scientifically speaking, new neuron paths will be created in your brain leading to an expansion of your mental capability. Only time will tell of that’s a good or bad thing.
May be in your next review mix the following lines in your usual style -
are the former PRs, web hackers and i know which journos, out for a sabbatical? Grammatical!
Keeping silent after that is tuff but believe me, close to zendom. Random.
have gone with the wind. Pind.
Where am I stuck? Cluck, chuck, muck, pluck, Fuck!!!
Eagerly waiting for your next..
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I loved this comment and the way you’ve mimicked Khalid. Count me in as your fan, Tejas.
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man khalid…..u sound like a masochist!!
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//where was this natural-born actor hiding all these years?//
KM saab, how could you miss his “missed call”? He was around all the while. Industry in all its hustle bustle did not notice. We would see hordes of the same kind all around us and when they make it big, we feign ignorance. Let us keep the drama to our films and not bring it into our lives.
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the first of the brickbats which Khalid was expecting??
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Ankur Vikal acted in Slumdog Millionaire too.
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Tejas…thank y, fank u, u talking about grammar..great…but just so thrilled to know there are baiters like u around…what would the world be without them??
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Take a deep breath, and try to comment again without SMS lingo. It will make you feel better. Tumhari taklif-o ka ilaaj goliyan nahi, kaayam choorna hai..
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I didnt read your review until now because I had not seen the film. Now that I have, I cant agree more with your review. I was left with the exact thoughts you had mentioned. There wasnt edge of the seat excitement but it was pure cinema for sure. Siddarth in his blog on PFC does mention that it was very Scorcesean mix between Good Fellas and Raging bull in terms of genre. I was impressed by the BGM. The secularism angle was a little abrupt, may be it could have been brought into the story, intermittently, in small and powerful doses to sort of weave carom and secularism together. A little bit of tangential and inconsequential humor ( a la Tanrantino style) could have done good to the film. Also o a funny note, the climax though not impressive, thankfully didnt have a grand carrom shown down and the victory of good over evil with a match cliche of our times
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Neeraj, u hit all the nails on the head. There’s a very good movie out there which lost its way..still that’s a lot lot better than films which make all the right (commercial and offmainstream) moves…aaah.
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I agree with Khalid’s views in this review! It’s a wonderful movie that just falls short of being a great movie. Wonderful camera work by PS Vinod. I was telling a friend something similar to what Khalid has mentioned here ….the only thing preventing Siddharth from taking on even more challenging and imposing roles is his physicality. Nevertheless,I’m hoping to see a lot of great performances from him in the future.
Note for those who live in the United States: As far as I know this movie hasn’t been released in the US. However, if you’re interested you can “rent” this movie from Studio 18′s youtube channel for about $5. I did, and it’s totally worth it!! Kudos to the Studio 18 team for providing such an option in lieu of an expensive US release. I did wish I could have seen this in a cinema hall but am happy I was at least provided the option of watching an original and legal copy of it !
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Dear Sir,
Anxiously waiting for your review on My Name Is Khan.One sincere request from all my friends who love your reviews.Please start writing for reviews on english movies as well.This will be a complete cinematic experience and a delight for all of us to keep informed about the english movie releases and whether worth watching.
I hope you have read my analysis on your star ratings written earlier on comments on your veer zara sa review.This was based on my experience in reading your reviews over many years.It was just for you to have a good laugh.
Keep writing and
Kind Regards,
Arvind Thakur
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dont lick so hard and deep :yahoo:
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Punit, I think Arvind is pulling KM’s leg
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believe it or not as a kid/teen i was a fan of KM
reviews (was not of so much of a movie buff then). pehli bar tab sulgi jab HAASIL ka review dekha :witsend: . tabse count karna band kar diya. review of Omkara was final straw 
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Please refer to it as MUMBAI people it’s a humble request !!!
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Sir that burp was a sexy 1. lol.. Nice review as usual…
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