Hattrick

Bollywood8217;s latest tryst with cricket, Hattrick, is like a decent fifty 8212; with just the odd six and some good fours, the rest made up of steady running between the wickets.

A story with three tracks, revolving around the 8216;cricket-as-life8217; metaphor, make up the movie. Paresh Rawal is an NRI with low esteem he is a janitor at the airport desperate for British citizenship, willing to go to any lengths to impress his immigration officer 8212;wear the Union Jack on his head, and the English team colours on his sleeve. Danny Denzongpa is a former famous cricketer, on dialysis for a failed kidney, stubbornly refusing to cop it before the World Cup finals, and Nana Patekar is his unsmiling, unamused-at-cricket-mania-doctor, trailing dread in his wake. There is also a newly-married couple8212;Kunal-Ri8212;i-which comes nearly unstuck over the game.

Because of the short running time one hour fifty minutes, Milan Luthria doesn8217;t get too much of a chance of going over the top, something he enjoys doing. So just a little over the time when Nana starts getting on your nerves there8217;s only so much dourness you can handle, the director allows him to smile: he lets Danny get in a TV in his hospital room, and even fakes up the final match with some help from Harsha Bhogle, playing himself with a smiley earnestness. Except for the shock of very obviously dyed jet black hair, which you get over with quickly, it8217;s great to have Danny back on the big screen.

And of course there is Paresh Rawal, who is always such a pleasure, playing a character whose primary job, for once, is not to make you laugh out loud. Luthria explores an interesting little thread through him, that of reverse racism: Paresh sees himself as a victim of racism white guys push him around in a pub; white officer makes fun of all the million Patels who want to settle in England, while ranting against his daughter8217;s black boyfriend.

The dialogue has crackle, and some situations, especially between the cricket-crazy Kunal and the Mahendra Singh Dhoni-mad Rimi are very funny: Luthria should have crisped up his script a little and junked the repetitiveness, to score a crackling century.

Passable enough to watch between matches, though.