Pic Of The Week – GOLD

Genre: Sports, Drama 
Rating: 3/5
154 minutes 
Director: Reema Kagti

Referring to the benign Mr. Wadia, the Hockey Federation mogul, Tapanda utters thrice in the film “What a fine Parsee gentleman”!
Spanning 12 years — from the 1936 Berlin Olympics to the 1948 Games, ‘Gold’ is the story of Tapan Das (Akshay Kumar) who was the junior manager of the Indian team (British India) which won top spot at the 1936 Games. The next two editions didn’t materialise due to WWll which sent Tapan cradling Bourbon and other spirit bottles. News that the 1948 Olympics could be held sobers him. He frantically attempts to assemble a fresh team (the 1936 team members have either aged or migrated: Muslims to Pakistan, Anglo-Indians to Australia) with the support of Wadia’s largesse.
Akshay does his best as the ‘Bangaali’ team manager who’s also fighting his own demons besides trying to seek retribution for the ‘doh sau saal ki ghulami’, apart from striving to maintain unity within the team. His domineering wife Monobina (Mouni Roy) is restricted to shrieking commands laced with a thick Bengali accent apart from feeding her husband ‘feesh’.
Amit Sadh as Raghubir Singh from a royal family, who insists on playing centreforward and Kunal Kapoor as the 1936 winning captain now assisting Tapanda, pitch in with above-average performances. But as Himmat Singh (debutant (Sunny Kaushal), who’s relegated to the sidelines till the dying moments of the final, is outstanding.
‘Minobina’ is a peppy number and the hockey matches are well-choreographed by Alvaro Gutierrez. Whether clandestinely carrying the Indian National Congress flag at the 1936 Games, or delivering a sermon on British subjugation, or the Indian and Pakistan teams cheering one another against their European opponents, the film manages to raise the patriotic fervour to a new ‘pitch’. There’s also a short primer on WWll through newspaper headlines.
On the flip side, Akshay let’s his Bengali accent slip occasionally, the songs are an unwelcome distraction while Hitler’s caricature (India beat Germany in the 1936 finals) is ludicrous.
Overall, ‘Gold’ sparkles in a few places, though lacking the glitter.