Speedy Singhs (Breakaway)

Frankly I have other movies to write reviews on; After Agneepath I've seen The Descendants, Ek Mein Aur Ekk Tu and The Artist, two of which I thoroughly enjoyed and want to write good reviews for (no points for guessing!) but today's movie (the one on which this post is centered) was just sooo bad that I had to write a review on it. Even though it's past midnight and you've probably never even heard of this movie before. Anyway. Taking a deep breath. I shall proceed to tell you in not too much detail about why you should NOT ever ever watch this movie! In my hall of shame, this movie is down there with the likes of Transformers 3! I mean seriously!

So, Speedy Singhs (featuring Anupam Kher, Russell Peters and Vinay Virmani) I hadn't heard of the later but he's kind of cute. But that's where it ends. Story? (Haha really? You want to know?) I'm going to try and not be so sarcastic but I so badly want to. I want to stand in front of Anupam Kher and hear some really good reason for why he chose to agree to do this movie? Was he forced at gun point? The storyline of this movie is extremely similar to Bend it like Beckham (incidentally Anupam Kher's role hasn't changed at all, he's still the unsupportive father who refuses to let his child play the sport they love for his own reasons) and my mom tells me it's also identical to Patiala House (in which incidentally Akshay Kumar the producer of this movie, plays the lead character who wants to play cricket but is not allowed to by his father). So there you have it. Pretty simple story. Talented son who loves playing ice hockey and is instead pushed into working in Uncle Sammy's "Speedy Singhs" truck company by his father. Only Uncle Sammy knows the son's true dreams and allows him to play the championship by hiding it from his brother. Somehow suddenly the father finds out about it, and then everyone knows but the son still plays. The son gets his ego into his head and quits the team when the caretaker-turned-coach tells him that he's no longer the captain thanks to his rude behavior. His coach's sister whom he is dating, tells him categorically that she would not date quitters. Then realization hits, he comes around and wins the championship for his team. Yay! Story ends!

Loopholes? Oh where should I start? Maybe with the flawed and incomplete characters? The father's character is cemented, same sob story (I came to Canada with $8 and look what we've managed to do), same I will not let you play and ruin your life dialogue, same irritable temper with wife and other child (a younger son in this case). The mother's character is very weak and flakey, attempts to be the peace-maker in the household but has a voice and demeanor of a mouse. You wouldn't even be able to hear her speak! Sometimes with the father and sometimes with the son. Very non-committal sort of a person. The younger son doesn't have a role per se (I think he has more dialogues in advertisements than in the whole movie!) except for one scene (not pivotal in nature) where he asks his brother for a good reason behind his being a cut-Surd, the brother emotionally tells him how he still regrets going ahead and cutting his hair off (very flop scene!) Others? (Haha you still want to know? You're still reading?) The other characters are too flimsy to even begin writing about them. The son is dating the sister of the coach who is decent but there's not much depth. The fiance of his cousin sister, is Russell Peters who is thoroughly wasted in the movie, his stand-up jokes fall flat because of poor timing and his appearance and acting is zilch!

The movie has tremendous amount of loose ends; they meet at an Indian restaurant, the chef serves them a dish meant exclusively for the son but his girlfriends eats it instead and all they show is her finding it very spicy and that's it. Next scene, they're walking hand in hand going home, next scene, the father is telling the mother how the girl ate like a buffalo in the restaurant! I mean WTH! There are so many of these, I stopped counting...

What was worse was, the movie attempted to showcase how the Canadian people were not making the Punjabi community feel welcome and like they belonged. This might have been the case back in 1960s, but since then times have changed and Punjabis are not made to feel like outsiders in Canada anymore. I mean nothing more can be testimony to this, than the fact that there are 4 Sikh players in Canada's hockey team for the Olympics! The whole idea of trying to make this into a larger than life issue, with patriotism and all involved was just not good enough. The times are too different for something like this to fly. It's believable when you talk about a traditional family not okay with their daughter donning shorts to play football, but trying to make that a representative of a nation and how this entire community needed some sort of miracle to feel like they belonged, give me a break!

And lastly (as if all these reasons were not enough), the sports in the movie was just nonsense. There was no practice, no sequence of events that led you to believe that there was some skill, some learning, some growth, or some talent. Out of nowhere, this team comes and plays and just gets better. At what should have been a pivotal moment, like the likes of Preeti Sabarwal getting a pass from Komal Chautala in the final goal of the movie, there's no such feeling when Rajveer Singh makes a pass to some player. Nothing. The moments are lost, the emotions never shown and the movie goes on. The actual games look like a joke, and at one point, the script actually says from a commentators perspective, "And this finally looks like a game!" How ironical is that!

I think I should stop now. But seriously, please don't watch this movie. And if you do meet Anupam Kher, ask him why?