Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India (2001)

Directed by Ashutosh Gowariker. Starring Aamir Khan, Gracy Singh, Paul Blackthorne, Rachel Shelley, Suhasini Mulay, Pradeep Rawat, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Yashpal Sharma, Rajendra Gupta, Aditya Lakhia, Shrivallabh Vyas, Javed Khan. [PG]

In the late 19th-century under colonial British Raj, a bold farmer (Khan) in Central India makes a wager with a cruel British regiment captain (Blackthorne) that he can produce a team of farmers that will defeat the English team in a cricket match, even though his village has no understanding of the sport. The stakes for the villagers: win, and their tax is canceled for three years; lose, and the tax they must pay will be tripled. Considered by many to be the quintessential modern Bollywood epic for international audiences, which means it also suffers from some of the most noticeable failings of their kind, chiefly the need for a shrewder editor to cut the “fat for the sake of show”. The show is full and entertaining, however, as it contains several lengthy song numbers, a love triangle (with one of the triangle sides being a forbidden romance), unbridled melodrama, lots of sports action, anti-imperialist agit-prop shoved down the throat (where it still tastes good), family tradition and strife, snarling villainy, and thuddingly obvious heroics—as long as you’re not looking for restraint, what else do you need? Saying it was hard for me to become fully invested in the climactic match because I knew nothing of the rules and gameplay of cricket walking into the movie may be an unfair criticism—baseball and American football movies I intrinsically “get” don’t take the time to instruct those who wouldn’t know a field goal from a homerun—but I must honestly report my enthusiasm was slightly diminished because of my ignorance. Music composed by A. R. Rahman.

76/100