Chakde! India

Well. It's been about half a lifetime since I last watched a bolly flick the whole way through (spot the slight exaggeration).

I didn't think I'd enjoy this. It started off a tad slowly and I'm not the biggest fan of Mr SRK but I stuck with it.

Glad I did! By the end I was skipping around the room, wielding an imaginary hockey-stick and celebrating my gold medal. Well, almost.

SRK managed a restrained and rather fab portrayal of the coach with a score to settle. The understated nature of his performance made it so much more real - you could sense the emotion simmering underneath, rather than have to put up with the usual wails of agony and t-t-t-trembling voice (equals 'horrible' in my book).

'The gals' were great - the Punjabi lass had me in stitches with her retorts, although being of Punjabi persuasion myself I was a tad annoyed that they didn't sort out her mono-brow. (I know, I know, petty but *sigh*). Aaanyway, there was a bossy one, a bullying one, a naive one, a boyish one etc etc. Some faces I'd seen before, but mostly unfamiliar - which worked fabulously as it made them all more the believable (well, leaving aside the fact that a few jogs around Delhi/Mumbai/wherever it was were enough to turn them into world champions).

Overall, it was entertaining fare (and needing just a background score and all of 2 songs to appease the music-lovers). It's actually one I'd buy on DVD and watch again on some lazy day. Family-friendly, unusual-ish subject matter, not overly long, well-acted, and with a nice moral thrown in about not being so darned tribalistic. <---that might not be a real word, but it suits me just fine.