Review: Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal
TAN GENTS
Brown-skinned Londoners score over whiteys in a football saga that aims high but lands low.
NOV 25, 2007 - THE OBSTREPEROUSLY-TITLED DHAN DHANA DHAN GOAL gets going with an account of the woes of Southall United, a mix of players of South Asian descent belonging to a football club that hasn’t won a match in 25 years. (That they’re hardly in the best of shape is reinforced with a tired visual metaphor: an alphabet is almost falling off the team-name that’s inscribed on the arch that leads to their playing grounds – which is about as clever as the film gets.) And if that isn’t bad news enough, their lease is up, and a Heartless and Soulless White Woman wants to take over these grounds and build a shopping mall, at which point, Shaan (Arshad Warsi) bursts out, “Yeh zameen hamari thi, hamari hai, hamari rahegi.”
It’s interesting how he words his angry declaration that this patch of land that they play on was, is, and will forever be theirs. By using the term zameen – which has far more emotional connotation than, say, “field” or “maidaan” – Shaan seems to be staking out a claim for himself (and his brown-skinned brothers) in his adopted homeland of England. (And of course, it’s the white man – okay, in this case, a white woman – that he’s fighting with for this land.) So Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal isn’t just about these underdogs escaping to victory (in a football tournament), but about these South Asians proving a point to the snotty Brits that they’re as good, if not better. It’s essentially Lagaan set out there, instead of over here.
This conceit alone would have been enough heavy lifting for a film that could have been just a rousing crowd-pleaser – but there’s more where that came from in the subplot involving Sunny (a relaxed, charismatic John Abraham, who seems to act best when asked to do no “acting”). He plays for Aston – a team otherwise full of whites – and he gets riled up when a fellow-player (who looks like a very young Kenneth Branagh) calls him a “Paki bastard.” His irritation isn’t due to the insult about his skin colour so much as the insinuation that he doesn’t belong there – for according to Sunny, he was born in England, and is therefore a British national. “Why are you confusing me?” he yells at his estranged father when the latter berates Sunny (because he isn’t particularly loyal about playing for Southall), and you sympathise with him, with his having to shoulder the burden of a bogus brand of patriotism simply because his first-generation-immigrant parents haven’t fully assimilated into their new homeland.
With all this going on, it would take a special talent to end up with a boring film that doesn’t know when to call it quits – but director Vivek Agnihotri clearly has it. Even without these Big Themes, there is enough to make for a no-frills, root-for-the-underdog sports movie: there’s the unexplained-at-first friction between Sunny and his father; there’s the animosity between Shaan and Sunny (which becomes worse when Sunny falls for Shaan’s sister Rumana, played by Bipasha Basu); there’s the fact that the cocky Sunny has to learn that it’s a team game and not a one-man show; there’s the bit about the washed-up (is there any other kind?) coach Tony (Boman Irani) having to resurrect himself in his own eyes as much as the eyes of others; there’s the angle about this blue-collar bunch having to arrange for gear, a sponsor, a tour bus, and so on. But none of this is handled in a way that’s remotely interesting.
There’s even a ton of potential for humour when you consider that Rumana is the team’s physiotherapist – I think, though she spends most of her time bringing beer for the boys – and when you think about the possible, uh, physiological repercussions when this bombshell takes to massaging, say, the hamstrings of a heartily red-blooded group of males away from (or entirely without) wives and girlfriends. But the only humour here is of the unintentional kind, as when Tony’s wife (a hapless Shernaz Patel, who, after this, has no doubt found more compelling reasons to stick with her day job at the theatre) sticks white flowers into a vase containing blooms of every other colour, and trills, “Alag alag rang ke phool ek saath kitne achche lagte hain.” This is her subtle hint that Southall United’s diversity is actually a good thing – and that sound you didn’t hear is that of audiences around the world gagging into their popcorn.
Copyright ©2007 The New Sunday Express. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
baradwaj,
A perennial-loser team facing off against the bullying neighouring team(stretching it a bit here); one of the ‘bully’ team players coming to play for the weak team; the animosity betweeen him and a key player of the weak team; then him falling in love with the sister of the latter - Looks like I read all these in the context of another , but delightful, sports-themed movie this year. Guess which one
raj, our sir never cares for such brilliant films which merges chennai milieu than pretending to be a faux-Indian movie..
oh sry..read your earlier review. cool!
oh. had actually thought this could do a one-up on CDI. as in, was expecting a proper, no-frill sport movie as against the emotionally pegged, dramatic Rousing Champ Movie. the zameen bit did it for me.
baradwaj, has adoor’s ‘naalu pennungal’ surfaced in chennai? yeah, i know the whole subtitle block but would love to have your take on it.
“TAN GENTS”
Abbaaa! Your PJs are rising to a different level
The waiting-for-the-PJ is almost as nerve wracking as the waiting-for-the-review.
Did you hear about the one according to which the good people of Madras thought that the latest Sanjay Leela Bhansali movie is an action flick because it was titled “Will You Die?”!
raj: You know, I was in half a mind to describe this film as: “Enna kodumai saar idhu!”
rajfan: Err… okay.
Ron: NP hasn’t made it here, but I don’t have a problem with subtitled films at all. I guess you’re referring to that discussion on Manichitrathazhu, where I said I woudn’t want to watch a film in a language I didn’t understand *without* subs. Now that’s painful, because you merely come away with a “general sense” of the film, without any of th details in, say, dialogue or performance. But with subtitles, hell yeah!
rajfan - feels strange to address some one thus - I am glad you realised your mistake on Baradwaj.
He is the designated bollywood critic for his paper, you know. His job is to analyse Hindi movies and sometimes, he doesfind interesting riffs in them which the director or the performers would probably never even have thought of :-). But thats just our man doing his job conscientiously :-). So, it is a bit unfair to pan him on that count - however, I do agree that he tends to forgive a Bollwood movie more readily than a tamil movie - I call it the Stockholm Syndrome
Ravi: Yup — but it wasn’t “titled” that way. The word Saawariya does mean exactly that in Tamil.
But I don’t know about the thinking-of-it-as-action-flick though.
A schizophrenic commenter who talks to himself using different handles. Excellent! Baradwaj, I have one such on my blog too. Maybe they can meet and form multiple friendships.
jabberwock annathe,unga blog-lam rejected..dont confuse my nick with raj,i’m rajfan and not “raj’s fan”,catch my point?
JW, who do you mean?
(”Rolls Eyes. Suspiciously.”)
You know, it is not really what you think, I can explain…I really can
brangan: “With all this going on, it would take a special talent to end up with a boring film that doesn’t know when to call it quits – but director Vivek Agnihotri clearly has it.” — Ouch! This comment is the very definition of what they say in Tamil about the needle and the banana…
Yesss..your words in response to mine in the Sanjay Subrahmanyan post, but don’t you think this is their rightful home? 
Also my turn to say that you almost had me fall off my chair laughing.
I hope Agnihotri reads it, but don’t bet your bottom dollar on his “getting” it. I have a feeling he’d think you’re paying him a compliment.
No offense (to non-Tamilians), but this “needle and the banana” thing seems to me to be an exclusively-Tamil talent, that is if a two-in-a-row encounter with it not flying with ROI (Rest of India, but, ahem, I actually mean WOI) counts as a solid-enough stat. Well, one is the hypothetical Agnihotri situation I state above and the other (now this one trumped me) was when an otherwise intelligent-sounding Padawan queried you on this closing line from your Sivaji music review: “With the indefatigable energy he still brings to his singing, he convinces you that the way to immeasurable greatness is to begin your day with a plateful of bondas.” C’mon, what is NOT to get here? After Maine Pyar Kiya and HAHK, isn’t SPB a household name thru India? Maybe some folks are unfamiliar with “bonda”? Now that I can accomodate (but only sort of)from a benefit-of-the-doubt standpoint — Now use “pakoras” or “jalebis” or even “vadas” instead and you’d COMPLETELY miss the point, although a non-Tamilian could argue that the aforementioned items are all calorific equivalents of the “bonda”. But the point is…phew. The tedium. Having to explain a joke, and that too, self-effacingly (like you always do) to someone who doesn’t get it. Now that would make me want to blow my brains out. But only coz I’m like that mustard seed that’s just landed in a pan of boiling oil (yup, I choose to use another Tamil expression)…I can’t just sit there and be patient and explain…I MUST explode! But you…you certainly don’t have the luxury of exploding; after all, you have an obligation to “hear” audiences gagging into their pre-exploded granular-yellow-cinemahall-junk-food and caution your loyalists lest a similar situation befall us. And for such selfless service, we continue to owe you thanks!
Yikes! A Padawan enquiry about “Evano Oruvan” review on the latest post here makes me want to bury my face in a burqa.
Agreed, it was rather presumptuous of me to include him/her in the ROI (non tamil-speaking) category above. Sorry Padawan, aanaa onnu sollungo, eppadi andha SPB/bonda joke ungalukku puriyaama pochchu? 