Chhalaang-Film Review

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Film: Chaalaang

Director: Hansal Mehta

Year: 2020

Streaming Platform: Amazon

Starring: Rajkumar Rao, Nushratt Bharuccha, Mohammad Zeeshan Ayyub, Sathish Kaushik, Sourabh Shukla

"A teacher's job is to teach. Anyone can take a student who gets 90% to 100%, but if you can take a student who gets 10% to 40%, then that's some achievement"

While reading an interview of Hansal Mehta we came to know about his next directorial venture Chhalaang with his muse Rajkumar Rao. What piqued the interest was the genre. It was a detour from Mehta's previous work.

WeReflect: Chhalaang is story of Montu who becomes a PT teachers in his old school with his father's recommendation. He has zero interest in that job. He is a habitual quitter of everything from science to LLB to state level championship. Moral policing the young lovers is his part-time job. He gets infatuated and develops friendship with newly appointed computer teacher Neelima (Bharuccha). Everything was working fine until the principal (Ila Arun) of the school appoints more qualified Singh (Zeeshan) as PT teacher. Singh also befriends Neelima that infuriates Montu. Singh's method to train the children was harsh and ruthless. Insecure Montu challenges Singh for triple round competition between his Student and Singh's. Who wins the game? Will Montu be able to take that proverbial leap?

It's not hard to guess the ending. The story is funny and have you in splits in certain scenes. Mehta's subtly taunts the establishment. For example take the Romeo squad who roams around targeting young. Performance by Rao, Shukla, and Kaushik is brilliant as usual. Bharuccha has nothing new to offer, though her character is pretty straight forward. It falls short if you compare it to Mehta's other works. It's rather unjust to do so considering the genre. The film is simple, funny, and easy to watch. Yes, the story is predictable and old. That is the beauty of it. It is an art to hold audience's attention with the age old formula. If you are looking for something intense watch Hansal Mehta's web series Scam 1992.