Dangal (2016)

I had a lot of time to kill last night, so I decided to watch a longer movie than usual. India's are quite reliable in that regard. This one runs 161 minutes, but the main reason I chose it over other options on my queue is its current placement on IMDb's top 100.

Retired wrestler Mahavir Singh Phogat (Aamir Khan, who's also the producer) regrets his failure at an international championship and hopes to have a son finish what he started. After begetting four girls in a row, he becomes discouraged -- until the two oldest, Geeta (Zaira Wasim and later Fatima Sana Shaikh) and Babita (Suhani Bhatnagar and later Sanya Malhotra), beat up some offending boys. He then becomes their drill sergeant-like coach and forces them to pursue his dream, despite obstacles of poverty and any other dreams they had.

Sounds like a rotten thing to do, especially since their corner of India is so old-fashioned that girls get made fun of just for wearing shorts, and they have to practice against boys. Everyone tries to talk Mahavir out of it. Nevertheless, Geeta and Babita completely change their attitude after hearing envy from a peer in an arranged marriage at 14. They may not be in control of their lives either, but at least their papa isn't in a hurry to get rid of them. Just another reminder that India sucks from a feminist standpoint.

Does the film preach a bad lesson, then? I'd be more inclined to think so if it weren't based on a true story, which need not intend any moral statement. I didn't know this going in, but the inclusion of many plot-unimportant details tipped me off. (Wikipedia says the basis is loose; I have yet to find a handy list of departures from reality.)

Things shift in the second half, when Geeta has enrolled at the National Sports Academy, as required for international competition. Her coach, Pramod Kadam (Girish Kulkarni), disagrees with Mahavir on pretty much everything, so she loses faith in Papa. It's worth noting that Pramod is less ambitious than Mahavir and would easily settle for bronze medals from any three trainees. Babita never wavers from Mahavir, and she wishes Geeta would reconcile with him.

The finale is typical sports flick fluff, with the audience being made to care strongly about the outcome, not least with the final contender being a jerk. So is the jealous Pramod, partly to swing our sympathies toward Mahavir and partly to addle Geeta. At least I could enjoy watching the wrestling, not for sordid reasons but because it really does look professional.

Indeed, pretty much everything about this movie looks like it must have taken a long time and/or a lot of work to pull off. Khan, for instance, had to both gain and lose a lot of weight. Might I say, I barely recognize him playing a bearded older man for a change.

Oh, I should mention the narrator: Mahavir's nephew, Omkar (Ritwik Sahore and later Aparshakti Khurana). As his cousins' first sparring partner, he feels like their lucky charm. He frequently suffers, but in a way that's played for laughs. This and the sillier village traditionalists are the reasons I added a "comedy" tag despite its lack on other sites. I think Khan almost has to have a little of that in all his works.

I stopped short of a "musical" tag, because while we hear characters singing, we never see their lips move to it, nor is there any dancing. It's just an accompaniment to montages. This doesn't prevent the typical effect of slowing the action, tho, so I hope you like the sound.

Dangal is not my idea of a classic, but it did prove a worthy way to fill my evening. It's also family-friendly enough to be available in the kid section of Netflix, if that means anything to you.