The inspiring real-life story of Nagpur-based Vijay Bars, who founded Slum Soccer, a non-governmental organization that works stellarly with children from slums, is at the heart of a screenwriter-director Nagraj Popatrao Manjule’s new film, “Jhund”. You’d think there would be no one better than Manjule to handle this kind of film because of his own story, which he uses so authentically in his work. He gave us “Fandry” and “Sairat”, two of the most influential films about hard caste divisions and inhuman social morals. In Jhund, Jai Bhim’s slogans and Babasaheb Ambedkar’s posters, distributed in an energetic dance sequence tuned to the rhythms of Ajay-Atul, are clear indicators of the Dalit component among the slum’s residents. Manjul is also the casting director, so the faces are organic, unlike so many movies in which Bollywood actors turn brown to match their surroundings.
Gatekeepers literally drive residents of slums away from the sparsely populated areas of St John’s College because they don’t want any closeness to young people who spend their days in “anti-social” things like sniffing glue, pickpocketing, stealing chains. The “children of the slums” are obviously waiting for a savior and who is better than a veteran sports coach Vijay Borad (Amitabh Bachchan), on the verge of retiring from a local college? He turns his attention to this underprivileged part and strengthens them enough to face the children of la-di-dah and be invited to the World Cup in faraway Hungary.
This colorful group, all arrogant and heartbreakingly worldly despite their youth, is the best part of this film that makes us work hard for its sweet spots during its hellishly long three-hour cycle: there is a danger of falling out of a movie, even before you logged in properly. Some of the children have mothers who work as domestic helpers in big houses, leaving them to their own devices – picking rags, collecting garbage. The good thing about their image is that even though they have such a hard life, they do not ask for sympathy. All they want is a chance for a better future, and Borade is the perfect beacon.
But the problem is that the film can never decide whether it wants to treat Bachchan’s Borade as a hero, or focus the spotlight on the difficult lives of children in slums and their struggle to overcome the huge chances they face from hostile police. forces and an equally hostile savarna samaai who wants to keep them hidden. This yo-yo effect is of no use to the film, which swings between a sports film, a biography of an amazing hero and a bunch of disadvantaged young people on the sports path to ascension.
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The plot is filled with too many sudden changes in the heart. A lonely Muslim family is trapped, which should be given as an example: a man who has been nasty for a long time – to his wife and daughters – repents. The police, which were ultra-violent, became facilitators. Borade’s grown son, indignant over his father’s deliberate involvement with the Basti children, skips a new page.
Everything is so emphasized and expressive that there are no nuances. Bachchan can play Vijay with a difference, but he is the wind under the wings of his ragged football team as he applauds from the sidelines. However, this is carefully balanced by the fact that he manages to deliver an exciting speech in the courtroom, reminiscent of “Pink”, with lawyers watching with admiration.
The two Sairat hosts, Akash Tosar and Rinki Rajguru, are here and both are used as “types”: the first to hate the gang leader from a slum, Don also known as Ankush Masram (Ankush Gedam), the most interesting and detailed by the ensemble ‘slumkid’, with its wild manbun, firm appearance and soft heart. How dare they look up and look us in the eye?
Rajguru is a girl who plays great football and is left to spin through bureaucratic hoops to get a passport. Hers is a kind of marginalized family in which there is no “kaagaz” and there are moments of unexpected fun when she and her father ask a prominent member of their village “pehchaan patra” (letter of recognition). How can such a person “recognize” those people who live under his field of vision?
Kishor Kadam is interestingly played against a guy like Borade Sir’s colleague, who is fiercely opposed to this mix of class and caste, almost a twist from his great turn in Fandry as head of a poor Dalit family forced to live outside the village. In ethnographic research, these characters would work better; in a feature film titled Superstar, the inherent drama of these people and their situations is out of date.
Finally, “Jhund” is too long a meander, whose sporadically vivid moments are imbued with the most common beats of the sports film as inspiration. Best intentions don’t always make a good movie.
Actors in the movie Jhund: Amitabh Bachchan, Ankush Gedam, Kishor Kadam, Akshat Tosar, Rinku Rajguru
Jhund director: Award of Popatrao Manjule
Jhund movie rating: 2 stars