Chhalang Review- Chaalang marks the weakest Hansal Mehta-Rajkumar Rao collaboration by a distance
Chhalaang is not a bad movie. It is just not a good one, which is sad given the talents at work here. Hansal Mehta, and Rajkumar Rao have collaborated in some of the finest works of their career. Rao owes a big chunk of his initial acclaim to Mehta’s trust in him. Just last year they came together with Omerta, a dark docu-drama detailing the life of Omar Sheikh, the terrorist who made a brief appearance in their first collaboration Shahid, for which Rao won a National Award.
It is a rich body of work to match, when they come together for this romantic sports drama. Chhalaang, though, is decidedly mediocre. There is nothing to suggest here that there are such eminent brains at work here. Everyone seems to be on auto-pilot mode here. Mehta directs this run-of-the-mill narrative with all possible clichés, often choosing clichés over creativity, hindering the emotional connect with the characters, who fail to grow past their paper-cut cliché.
The story is simple, and one that we have seen multiple times with slight deviations. Monty (Rajkumar Rao) is a lazy, unambitious P. T. Instructor in the school where he studied as a student. We first see him oversleeping as his mother tries to wake him up. It is easily evident that Monty is a man-child, with little sense of himself, his growth, and professional commitment. The only thing he seems committed to be is a right-wing goon. He is a tough person to root, despite Rao trying his best to make his problems appear innocent, with an earnest, genuinely likable performance.
His life changes when Neelima Mehra (Nushrat Bharucha), a new computer teacher steals his heart, with no word from her side. In the greed of getting her, Monty starts to work on himself. It is not noble, but at least you see some point to the narrative, when we meet Inder Mohan Singh (Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub), the enigmatic image of perfection, forming the triangle in the love-story to lend its essence into a different genre, growing into a more indie Student of the Year 2, forcing us to root for Monty, simply because he is played by Rao, and writer Luv Ranjan has pre-decided that the audience is meant to root for Monty, because it makes sense to turn a lazy, sexist, worthless character likable presence in your narrative.
Then, there is an array of side characters played by the likes of Saurabh Shukla, Satish Kaushik, and Ila Arun, all fulfilling the North India cliché that seems to be running out of gas as a sub-genre sooner than later. Neelima never becomes dynamic enough as a character to become interesting enough in the narrative, leaving little for Bharucha to do with a role like — a lot of her previous performances — remains decent, but never remarkable.
However, all is not lost in Chhalaang. Rajkumar Rao, and Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub played brothers in Mehta’s directorial Shahid, appear here as rivals for a coaching job in a school. It is a repeated idea that becomes briefly enjoyable simply because of what these two bring to the table. Rao as the underdog is fantastic (if not as electrifyingly brilliant as he was as the Mithun-obsessed lover in Ludo), while Ayyub imbibes the persona of an arrogant bully impressively.
Chhalaang benefits greatly from its actors to become a watchable affair, but the overarching political limitations of Luv Ranjan (the producer here) keeps the film grounded firmly in the terrain on uncreative mediocrity. It rarely feels like a Hansal Mehta film, and barely a Rajkumar Rao-starrer. Chhalaang, at the end of the day, is a confused narrative, trying to be a love-triangle, but too obsessed with its upper crust of a sports drama to become anything beyond a crumbling loss of opportunity.
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