Gold, Movie Review: Akshay Kumar Scores The Winning Goal, Single-Handedly
A lot happens on and off the field in Gold, but Akshay Kumar is all there to not let it fritter away
Gold is another film this year from our Bollywood stable which is clean from its first frame till the last. Soorma, Dhadak and Fanney Khan, you have company. Innocence is indeed coming back. Gold, which dwells on the mentor who readied India to win her first gold medal at the 1948 Olympics, races off to a brisk start, slows down in the middle, and then starts galloping after the interval. Gold swells you with pride as you see how Indian players went hammer and tongs on England in the finals simply because the British had ruled over us for 200 years. That we are now on each other's throat in our 71st year of Independence is a story for another day. The long and short of this hockey story is that Gold is good cinema, which could have been better. Let me explain.
Akshay Kumar is in fine fettle. What a consistent actor! Watch him in the scenes where he hits the bottle. Watch him in the scenes where be exults when his players do well. Watch him in the scenes when he breaks into dances that are so cute that you want to hug him. Watch him in the scenes when he holds India's tricolor.
Akshay Kumar And Mouni Roy In Gold
Only few actors might have been able to pull off this role with so much grace and conviction. It is heartwarming to see that Kumar, whom I have always admired more in content-driven stuff, pulls off this film single-handedly without great assistance from his team (Amit Sadh, Sunny Kaushal and Vineet Kumar Singh are good but fail to register strongly), including the film's director Reema Kagti.
I think the lady captain could have done a better job. Seems, she got a bit stuck in opting for the middle ground to make her product realistic instead of choosing the hi-end road to make her characters larger than life.
Akshay Kumar In Gold
I know her head and heart is in the right place, but her execution this time which was laden with higher expectations, somehow fails to justify the superstar's enormous talent. The goal would have missed the mark and Gold would not have made Kagti's body of work richer if Akshay had gone for even a cat nap.
A Still From Gold
As for the leading lady Mouni Roy, she needs to learn a lot if she wants to make headway in the competitive-to-the-hilt Bollywood. She makes it up a bit in few scenes when she does not make faces but Kagti should have had better options while casting the female lead. Ms Roy, please understand that TV serials and feature films are two different-ball games. And how about having a better hair-stylist next time?
I am going with THREE.