83: It's neither cricket nor good drama

To me, the much-awaited Kabir Khan film 83, apparently based on events surrounding India’s cricket World Cup victory of 1983, doesn’t look like a movie. It is rather a documentary, which reminds viewers of old times with a newsreel and ham-handed anchoring at the very start.

The film comes across as an amateur attempt by Khan, who seems to know neither the technicalities nor the history of events around Team India’s triumph.

Sample the cast. The actors are quite old, and apart from a few, most look like they are playing in a veterans’ World Cup. Compare this to the original team, in which, except for Sunil Gavaskar, Syed Kirmani, Madan Lal and Mohinder Amarnath, all were in their 20s.

People who understand cricket know that Mohinder ‘Jimmy’ Amarnath had the most important contribution to India’s performance with both bat and ball, which got him the ‘player of the tournament’ award. Similar to Kapil Dev’s lionhearted knock against Zimbabwe, which enabled India to progress in the tournament, the incisive spell by Kirti Azad and Amarnath against England in the semi-finals saw the team reach the finals.

Perhaps Kabir Khan did not watch the clips that could have made for a newsreel, or he would have known that the 24 overs bowled between Kirti and Amarnath for a total of 55 runs and the loss of four wickets, including the prized wicket of Ian Botham, were key to stifling England in the middle overs.

A higher screen time to Gavaskar as compared to others is a mystery, or maybe a bias, since he barely contributed to the team’s wins with his highest score being a measly 25. The film, at the same time, curiously underplays the contributions of Sandeep Patil, Roger Binny, and Kirti Azad.

Binny took 18 wickets in the tournament and was a handful for most opposition teams. If justice had been done to their contributions, the film would have done better in the north, west and southern belts.

In contrast, Balwinder Sandhu, a military pace bowler, has been unnecessarily projected as a superhero in the film for just one wicket﹘of Gordon Greenidge﹘that he claimed in the final. The script hypes up his problem with his then fiancée for no apparent reason when it had no relevance to his performance on the field.

Just as foolish is the attempt to show a Sikh with his hair down in his room.

It seems that there was a pact with Sandhu that he would be given more time in the movie, even if his overall performance in the Cup did not warrant it, because he taught the cast in his academy.

Mind you, Kapil played a lot straighter than the “Natraj” (shots typical of the Indian team skipper) pulls and hooks he played in abundance in his brutal not-out innings of 175 against Zimbabwe. He was an outstanding cricketer whose contribution with the bat was as important as his bowling and fielding.

Meanwhile, playing the role of Kapil, who was always known to be a gentleman and played his cricket straight and hard, Ranveer has hardly done justice to the character or the movie. His random bounces and bawls will not make the movie any better than it actually is. Add to that his real and reel life wife, Deepika Padukone, wearing a joke of a wig and mouthing silly dialogues at the airport about phone connections not fructifying even after 20 years in India.

Hitting viewers for six, 83 weaves in unrelated events such as the riots in Nawabpur and supposed events at the border where a Pakistani commanding officer allows troops to listen to radio commentary and not attack Indian posts. The joke doesn’t end here. A Muslim family in Nawabpur sets the antennae right and security forces watch the matches with them. And then it bowls over as bizarre as the Indian prime minister tells her ministers to ensure that the public attention is diverted from the riots by a live telecast of the match.

Besides, the music, particularly, the anthem song, is an apology for sound. It is neither catchy nor appealing, if compared with other sports films such as Chak De India.

And, if all this is not enough, Ranveer, like a clown, goes around indulging in public displays of affection by kissing Kapil Dev on his lips and cuddling with other members of the team. The movie may recover money by selling OTT rights to Netflix and Hotstar, but it will be nowhere near the runaway success of Chak de India. Even if Ranveer acts well, his over-the-top mannerisms do not make for an endearing viewing experience. For all his sobs and kisses with the cast, his performance will not lift the film’s fortunes though no one knows how many eyeballs his eccentricities will attract.

Khan’s film is, at best, a documentary in which a group of elderly amateur actors, led by Gavaskar, attempt to recreate an artificial excitement surrounding the events of the 1983 tournament.

The writer is an independent journalist, an NIS cricket coach and was a first-class cricketer.