But, the trend of using only cricket in the films seems to be changing as you take a closer look at the forthcoming films for this year. Other than cricket, other sports are also being used as the backdrop in the storyline. Sports like hockey, football is drawing in maximum attention when it comes to the new age film-makers inspired by the Hollywood style of presenting the common man trying out his luck in the sports arena.
The year 2007 will be known as the year which has the maximum announcements made for films in the genre of sports. The much-awaited film in this genre is the King Khan starrer “Chuk De! India” to be directed by Shmit Amin. The film revolves around the story of a hockey coach for a girl’s team who strives hard to bring the team at par with other international teams. Interesting! And then there are few films trekking a very different territory in the form of films based on car racing. The young film-maker Siddhatha Anand of ‘Salaam Namaste’ fame will be coming up with a film ‘Tara Ram Pam’ starring Saif Ali Khan in a never before role of a car racer. On the similar lines is yet another film titled “Race” starring Sanjay Dutt, John Abraham, Kareena Kapoor and Ritesh Deshmukh. In the Soham Shah directed flick, Sanjay Dutt plays the role of a very popular racing driver. Even soccer is being highlighted in not one but two yet-to-be-titled films, one of them starring the handsome model-turned-actors Milind Soman and Dino Morea.
So, at a time when so much noise is made about concept cinema taking away the chunk of films made today, sports is slowly trying to create space for itself. For a cricket maniac nation like India, it will be more encouraging and heartening to see the promotion of other sports through the medium of cinema on the big sheets of the theatre. May be next time it won’t be a “Bend It Like Beckam” but “Bend it like Sharma or Verma”. As we say, umeed pay duniya… Bollywood kayam hai!
Keep coming back to this section, as all this week we have comprehensive features on Bollywood and Sports.
Tanushree Chatterjee