Bollywood’s love for biopics continues with Soorma. Sandeep Singh’s life has all the ingredients that are apt for a true blue Bollywood entertainment. Diljit Dosanjh had told HotFridayTalks earlier during an interview that he had not heard a story like this before, and he was only convinced to do the film because the story was real and it also had all the masala that a Hindi film requires. It was as if someone had written it and not happened in real!
We do agree with that, because even though there have been a number of Bollywood films based on the life of sportsmen/sportswomen, Soorma is different. Unlike most of the sports biopics where they show the struggle, poverty etc. etc. Soorma has none of that. The film, unlike the others, does not show all the hardships that the player had to go through to reach that level and get the recognition. What it has is romance and a tragedy that changes his life.
Soorma is based on the life of India’s modern hockey legend Sandeep Singh. His is an extremely inspirational story, where he was accidentally shot but he bounced back from the accident to become one of the best hockey players in the country. Directed by Shaadi Ali, Diljit Dosanjh stars as Sandeep.
The love between Sandeep(Diljit Dosanjh) and a fellow hockey player, Preeto(Tapsee Pannu)has been shown realistically. Sandeep loses his interest in hockey because of a tough coach and then gets back to the game again when he falls head over heels in love with coach’s niece Preeto. The way they have shown how Sandeep is blinded by Preeto’s love is brilliant. One of my favourite scenes is the one between the two brothers; Sandeep and Bikram(Angad Bedi), where Bikram who is the older of the two, is trying to make Sandeep see some sense.
I also loved the way the whole scene where Sandeep is shot in the train has been captured. That’s also the scene that changes the tone of the film. While the first half is fun and easy, it’s the second half that keeps you on the edge of your seat and your feelings move from pain to strength along with the characters, as the film progresses.
The casting of this biopic is spot on. The film packs in some powerful performances and even the real-life Sandeep agrees on this, when he was asked by HotFridayTalks during an interview about how happy he is with the casting, he had said that it could not be better than this.“Everything shown in this film is exactly how it happened in my life, including some of the dialogues and the actors have played their roles perfectly. I cannot see anyone else but Diljit paaji play me in my biopic.”
Diljit is going places, his performance as Sandeep Singh is near perfect. Not just the body language and mannerisms, but he’s also caught the nuances of Sandeep’s style of playing hockey perfectly, even the most difficult hockey strokes like Drag Flick. Soorma belongs to Diljit!
Tapsee Pannu is on a roll, she’s got a whole lot of films coming up. That’s because she is a dependable actress and one can trust her to do any role given to her. In Soorma too she’s given an impressive performance. Angad as Sandeep’s older brother and his rock-solid support, Bikram is good too. He plays the doting and loving older brother to perfection. It was nice to watch Satish Kaushik back on the big screen in Soorma.
Though the film does have a few flaws, like the song montages while the gruelling training session is going on, which I thought was unnecessary, Soorma has been written, shot and directed well, there is a lot of detail that has gone into the film.
Chak De, the Shah Rukh Khan starrer was also about hockey and the film created a benchmark as far as sports films are concerned, so there are bound to be comparisons between the two. Will Soorma do better than Chak De? We cannot say, but what we can say is that while Chak De was mostly a fictional story, inspired by the Indian women’s national field hockey team’s win at the 2002 Commonwealth Games and explored themes such as feminism and sexism, Soorma is based on the real life of Sandeep Singh, the guy who did not give up even after being paralysed and wheelchair-bound, a guy whose story is sure to inspire many!
Go watch Soorma and get inspired!
