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Cast: Rahul Bose, Zain Khan, Vijay Crishna and others Director: Kituu Salooja Rating: **  After Lagaan, hardly any sports-based Hindi film has appealed to the masses — maybe Iqbal to a certain extent. So Kituu Salooja’s debut film for children, Chain Kulii Ki Main Kulii, has it tough to begin with, and then the target audience is spoilt for choice with superior Hollywood films for kids running in the theatres and unlimited programming on TV. So unless a film has the ability to grab the attention of children and their parents, with an innovative story line or loads of entertainment, why would they bother to spend money on it anyway? In this case, even the time of the release is wrong, after school vacations are over. Chain Kulii… has a magical wish fulfillment plot, which even kids would find far-fetched; mainly because the treatment is boringly pedestrian, otherwise anyone would like a fantasy come true. Karan (Zain Khan), being raised in an orphanage with a horrid warden (Rajesh Khera), who calls them "Bloody basket" and makes them do all the chores, get a chance to escape. In a bin of ragged, broken toys, he finds a cricket bat, which is touched by magic, since it belonged to Kapil Dev during the Indian teams historic World Cup win in 1983.
The sixers he hits with the bat, take him right to the Indian cricket team, playing Pakistan. It hardly seems likely that a coach (Vijay Crishna) would be able to get a 13-year-old from the streets into the team overnight, but that’s not the problem with the script. It’s the lack of humour, the forced track of the Indian captain Varun’s (Rahul Bose) problem with his father, and hardly any interaction between Karan and other teammates and Karan with the rest of the sporting world, including media and fans. There is no real drama in the initial hostility and very little genuine warmth in the subsequent friendship between Varun and Karan, forced by the coach to room together. The film does end, however, on a plausible note, with a jealous inmate from the orphanage stealing the bat, and Karan learning to do without the prop. The child actor Zain Khan is quite a find and does very well compared to the adult actors in the film. The title does not really mean anything — it’s a phrase used in the old film Satte Pe Satta and then in a song in Masti — it would not cause any curiosity and has no associations for a child, who might watch the film. |
