Hello Movie Maniacs
What makes ‘Raging Bull’ such a memorable sports biopic?
What makes ‘Remember the Titans’ an epic sports biopic?
What makes ‘Moneyball’ such an emotional watch?
The reason is one and that is these sports biopic were not just centered around a sport, but all the drama, all the emotions, and all the actions in the movie are driven by sports and only sports.
This is exactly what I had in mind when I decided to stream 83.
Let’s incise it
With an impressive time of 2 Hrs and 40 minutes, 83 could have easily covered the entire world cup campaign of Indian team in all its beauty, success, and failures alike, but barring a couple of sequences, this is a complete and utter mess.
Let me list down everything wrong with 83
- Even though 83 is about a sport event this sports aspect of the movie is at its weakest. Except for Kapil Dev 175 run innings, a few memorable sequences in the world cup final, and the sequence of India’s opening win against the West Indies, the sports sequences have been covered in an extremely shoddy manner.
- The camera work and the editing of match moments is very choppy and fails to make one invest deeply. It is just a haphazardly arranged collage of bowling actions and shadow batting.
- The overly done melodramatic sequences are absolutely cringe. The one where a west Indian woman sledges the wives of Kapil Dev and Madan Lal is nauseating.
- The two fan characters that make this movie a pain to watch is the two car mechanics who appear as spectator in almost every match and indulge in some absolutely cringe bollywoodish tomfoolery. I felt like smashing my TV every time they appeared on screen.
- And do not get me started on the whole sports solves a riot problem, and the whole sequence of India Pakistan border.
What makes a sports movie great.
There is a scene in the movie where Roger Binny is crying in his room as he has realized that he is not meeting the expectations of his captain, his team, his country, and of himself. When I watch sports movie, I want more of that. Give me the pain of the players when they lose, show their vulnerabilities, focus on their internal battles as a sports person, bring out what goes through their life before a high-pressure game, explore their emotions when they falter, paint their celebrations when they win, and most importantly bring out the seriousness of the sport.
Missed opportunities
Except for the character of Kapil Dev, the passion is largely missing in all the other portrayals. They could have used a subplot to take a peek into the mind of Sunil Valson, who did not even get a match, instead of showing the India-England fan brawl, whose existence in the movie was completely pointless.
The Show stealer
Ranveer Singh is undoubtedly the show stealer of this movie. He has perfected everything from the looks to the speech patterns of Kapil Dev. In a way he has brought Kapil ji alive on the big screen. He is the thread that binds the film in spite of all it’s flaws. He is the saviour of this Kabir Khan directed disaster. The movie may have bombed (deservedly so) but it has cemented the status of Ranveer Singh as a versatile actor.
Final word
Making sports biopic is indeed a tough climb and 83 falters every 5 minutes. For me 83 is not a sports biopic, but a masala entertainer based on a real sporting event.
When I said this movie was trash, I somehow got branded as an anti-national by my friends🤣🤣