Chhalaang is an Indian sports comedy film directed by Hansal Mehta starring Rajkummar Rao and Nushrat Bharucha in lead roles, along with Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, Ila Arun, Satish Kaushik, Saurabh Shukla, Suparna Marwah, Naman Jain in the supporting roles. The film was released on 13th November 2020 on Amazon Prime Video.
The story follows Montu (Rajkummar Rao) who works as a Physical Education Instructor in a school, and soon enters the elegant Neelu (Nushrat Bharucha), and in no less time, Montu is now developing affection towards Neelu and he doesn't take his job seriously. By the new government's scheme, the sports has now been made compulsory for every student and hence the school principal Usha (Ila Arun) appoints I.M.Singh (Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub) who is a professional PTI and becomes a threat now for Montu's professional and love life. This makes Montu more concerned about his work and makes his team of "not so sports players" to compete with Singh's team.
The story and screenplay are by Aseem Arora, Zeishan Quadri, and Luv Ranjan. The story and screenplay both deliver nothing new to us. It has an important message to convey, but the writer uses a stale script to put it out. The message is clear, the film is entertaining but full of cliches. The love track of Montu and Neelu is enchanting and charming, but the characters are not well developed, it is very hard to get them. Nushrat has definitely got a strong presence here, but her role Neelu is somewhat confusing, she's on Singh's side, and another time on Montu's side, it's not clear. Some of the scenes don't make sense, like selecting all Brainy, Book loving students to play in the school sports tournament, is somewhat feels the film has made a mockery of itself. The sports scenes, like of kabaddi, relay race, and basketball, none of the games are not well presented. No edgy moments, no adrenaline rush, nothing. Remember Dangal and its iconic wrestling scenes that are so well shot and are effective, when the audience has already witnessed such classy sports scenes, at least in Chhalang, it could have been made tighter, and crisp and exciting.
Rajkummar Rao playing Montu would be like walking on a cake for him. Have you watched Ludo yet, he's phenomenal there, and here, yet again he impresses. Nushrat Bharucha as Neelu, is confident and has done her job amazingly well and has a strong presence throughout. Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub sparks energy to the screenplay and shines in his limited presence as I.M. Singh. Ila Arun as School principal is sweet and it's a delight to watch her anytime. Saurabh Shukla is as always has a remarkable presence and his scenes with Rajkummar Rao are the plus points of this film. Satish Kaushik, Jatin Sarna, and Rajiv Gupta are just wasted here and suffers from being half baked.
The cinematography by Eeshit Narain is just about okay and becomes very dull in the sports portion. It fails to create any impact and the same goes with the uneven editing, sometimes the film paces up and another time dives down hampering the excitement. Talking about songs, other than "Chhalaang Title Track", none works.
Chhalaang directed by Hansal Mehta, who last directed Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story, which was a masterpiece, here fails to create any impact, tackling gender equality and presenting the typical male egoistic characters, Hansal Mehta had tried hard, but the film falls flat in the script department itself, which is neither exciting nor novel. The makers are wishing you Happy Diwali by giving you stale sweets in new wrappings.
Rating:- 2/5
Now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
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