World Cup 2011: Good intent but bad execution

Rating: 1.5 out of 5*

Starring: Introducing Ravi Kapoor and Manisha Chatterjee, Suresh Oberoi, Prem Chopra, Smita Jaykar, Ehsaan Khan and Zakir Hussain

Director: Ravi Kapoor

Indian cricket team’s captain Ravi Indulkar(Ravi Kapoor) gets lured by the bookie lord Shobhan’s (Zakir Hussain) huge bribe during the World Cup game against Pakistan in 2007. Ravi along with his 4 team mates - Rajpal, Hiten, Irfan and Balwinder ends up throwing the match away resulting in India’s loss. They are however later exposed by a journalist which leads to the Indian Cricket Board ousting them all for 4 years from cricket. Ravi’s girlfriend, Soha (Manisha) dumps him and he also faces his father’s death. But Indian team’s cricketing coach (Suresh Oberoi) gives one more chance to the black listed Ravi and his 4 other banned team mates. Its then an India v/s Pakistan final and the end is everyone’s guess.

The promotional strategy of the film has been revolving around exposing all the nexus between the underworld and the cricketing world and what not but there is simply nothing new that we are shown in here. Debutant actor-director Ravi Kapoor has got confused trying to pack in too many genres into one. At times the film sets the tone of a Chak De India then suddenly turns into Jannat and then goes into Ram Gopal Varma’s underworld territory. Also the film touches just the tip of these genres and doesn’t go deep into exposing anything really startling. Okay now even if that is accepted what about the execution? Its plain amateurish at many places with huge loopholes in the script. You end up laughing at all the wrong places.

As an actor Ravi Kapoor shows some spark and can do better with more opportunities. Manisha is passable. Amongst the rest cast full of character actors, the ones who impress are Zakir Hussain and Suresh Oberoi. Former Indian cricketers Saba Karim and Nikhil Chopra do a good job on screen as commentators.

Music by Aadesh Srivastava is just about okay while the other technicalities are average.v

World Cup 2011 has a good intent but its the bad execution that leaves you disappointed.

-Sampurn Media