REVIEW GUJARAT 11 (Gujarati)

Producers- Jayant Gilatar, Yash Shah, Haresh Patel and M.S. Jolly

Director- Jayant Gilatar

Star Cast- Daisy Shah, Pratik Gandhi, Manav Soneji, Chetan Daiya, Kavin Dave, Avadh Mehta, Kevin Mehta

Genre- Social

Rating- ***

One Time engrossing Watch!

Jyothi Venkatesh

Drawing inspiration from the 2007 hockey film Chak De! India and blending it with the 2014 female cop action-thriller Mardaani, Gujarat 11 is the first sports film in Gujarati. Divya faces many problems but inspires them to work hard and make it to the finals.The film was dropped yesterday on Amazon Prime Video

Gujarat 11 is the story of an ex-football player turned cop, Divya Chauhan, (Daisy Shah) who takes up the challenge of training juvenile home boys for a state-level football tournament, as a punishment for not bowing down to a corrupt Minister and what’s more succeeding in her mission and winning laurels for Gujarat government. It should be noted that Divya happens to be the only child of a martyred police officer.

The film begins on an interesting note with the lady cop Divya Chauhan hauling a drug peddler after dancing at a dandiya event followed by a long chase, where she chooses to show her prowess in action. At home, she calls her mother at times Mala and at times dude and turning down her request to her to settle down by opting for a marriage. The lady cop has a rich corporate boy friend (Pratik Gandhi) whom she refers to as jhadia while he calls her idiot

The plot has absolutely nothing by way of novelty to offer to the cinegoers but what makes the film riveting to the core is the deft direction by Jayannt Gilatar who has infused the screenplay with interesting dramatic moments. The dialogues also are incisive. Like when Divya tells the corrupt jailor that it may be his dhanda to be corrupt but she knows her own fundas

In his bid to make the script taut, the director does away with the romantic angle in the film and you do not have a romantic duet popping in every half an hour, though then film could have been made slicker with crisp editing, with far too many scenes devoted to the back stories of the juvenile delinquents, who are selected to be part of the football team.

Performances wise, I’d say kudos to Daisy Shah who does a good job as Divya Chauhan the no nonsense cop. Though basically Daisy is a choreography assistant having been trained with choreographer Ganesh Acharya, she does not get an opportunity to prove herself as a dancer in many scenes except in the opening dandiya scene. I should concede that Daisy Shah does have a strong screen presence, and does both action and dance sequences with flair, though I had my own share of reservations before I watched the film as I have seen Daisy’s C grade Hindi films where she  did not get to display anything other than her shapely curves.

Pratik Gandhi as her boy friend has hardly any scope to show his mettle as an actor while Kavin Dave overacts as the pot bellied assistant of Divya trying to evolve laughter forcibly. RoopKumar Rathod’s tunes and Dilip Rawal’s lyrics are tuneful and catchy, while sadly Vishal Sangwai’s camerawork is just passable. To sum up, I’d say that the film is easily a onetime watch as it does not bore you and succeeds in keeping you engrossed though it is not superlative