Film: Gold

Director: Reema Kagti

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Cast: Akshay Kumar, Mouni Roy, Kunal Kapoor, Amit Sadh

Rating: 3.5

Akshay Kumar is here with another stunning performance in Gold. The movie begins with the pre-Independence winning strike of British India, showcasing a well built (Samrat) Kunal Kapoor playing for the Hockey team in the 1936 Olympics final. We see a jesty and enthusiastic Tapan Das, sports manager played by our epitome of patriotic films in the last few years, Akshay Kumar.

Gold revolves around a dream, which is to see the tricolor soaring high on the podium, as they win the gold for the country. It is not just about how ‘Free India’ got its gold in the Olympics but also how a person’s emotions are tied up for the love of the nation.

Also read: Watch | This rare video of Kishore Kumar revives his magic

We see a fast forward of snippets through the World War 2 and how it affected the national team aiming for gold.

The team for gold got split into two nations after the Indo-Pak partition, a depressed and alcohol-induced Tapan (Akshay Kumar) is then brought back to the field by  Kunal Kapoor who is now retired and is ready to mentor the new team.

Apart from Tapan, no one else is enthusiastic enough to continue with their dream of winning. He sets on a journey across the country to select the finest players who would fulfil the dream which was set by the retired players. He faces financial problems and gets shunned by ministers for his poor reputation due to history of intoxication.

The boys start teaming up internally, Kunal comes up with strategies to boost their team spirit. (Amit Sadh)  Raghubir Pratap Singh a star player who is full of his Thakur pride wanting to play center-forward starts having issues with one of the team player Himmat Singh ( Sunny Kaushal)  The team heads for London to play against the nation which ruled us for 200 hundred years.

Akshay Kumar is the major driving force behind the team to dream high and bring the medal home.

The last sequence of the film could have been less stretched, Sachin-Jigar’s composition brings out the emotions every Indian has when they see the National Flag on the stands in a foreign land is tear-jerking.

Few portions of the film give nostalgia of Chak de India with almost parallel similarities of the manager not being trusted enough, blamed and shunned and eventually the team loves him.

Being it a sports drama, few songs where our Tapan is dancing carefree in a room full of people”Chadh gayi hai” and “Monobina” seems unnecessary.

Read more: Mouni Roy to play negative role in Alia-Ranbir’s ‘Brahmastra’

Mouni Roy has delivered a smooth performance with her Bollywood debut. Kunal Kapoor has less screen presence. Akshay, as usual, puts the best foot forward with his acting.

If not for sports then watch it for  Akshay Kumar’s acting or for the love of the country.

On this note, Happy Independence Day!