Review: Rashmi Rocket. Yeh toh phuski nikla re!

Rashmi Rocket on Zee5

The film stars: Tapsee Pannu as Rashmi Rocket and Priyanshu Painyuli as her husband Captain Gagan Thakur, Abhishek Banerjee as lawyer Eeshit Mehta, Manoj Joshi and Supriya Pathak as Rashmi's parents, and Varun Badola as Dilip Chopra the baddie Selector of the Indian Athletics League (or some such gormint sports association).

Watch it or skip it? 

It's a paint-by-numbers sports film with an athlete suing the sports body. Use the remote I say, fast forward to the court case because you like Supriya Pilgaonkar as 'Milady' erm... 'Your Honour!'

Ab Review karte hain, seriously: 

So little Rashmi beats all the boys in the village to capture a kite, People flying kites on the terrace are yelling 'Kai po che!'. People are wearing tie-die bandhani sarees and brightly coloured pugdis. Daddy Manoj Joshi encourages her to run like a rocket and never says no to her for anything. Mum Supriya Pathak runs a handicraft enterprise which looks like a lovely ad for an ideal village. 

Suddenly she has to defend a woman at the Panchayat whose husband beats her and won't apologise. Grown up Rashmi who now rides a motrobike is there beside her mum and as soon as the husband tries to drag the woman a minute after apologising, Rashmi hits him. 

But her job is to take tourists around the Rann. It's gorgeous to see miles of salty marshes, and I wish the story had taken advantage of Rashmi racing in our country's unique geographical feature. Remember the movie, The World's Fastest Indian' where Anthony Hopkins races the Indian bike in the Bonneville salt flats in Utah? The cinematography makes you go weak in the knees and dizzy in the head because you experience a kind of white out. What could have been her training ground, Rashmi Rocket just saves a chap from blowing up on a land mine. 

I'm like, they were just talking about snakes, yeh land mine kidhar se aaya?

Anyway, Rashmi runs faster than the nice looking hero who's brought two marathoners from the army to train in the salt flats. I guess they forgot about the training because she ran faster than them. But the hero is nice looking. 

The army camp (why is there a camp and not a proper cantonment? Have they been there ever since the earthquake and when Rashmi was a little girl? Who are they treating? But you like how Rashmi Rocket gets dressed and joins the celebrations where everyone is blindingly colourful. She flirts with the Captain and the nice guy dances the Dholi taaro dhol baaje type dance. 

I am super impressed already with Tapsee Pannu's super athletic body, so the dance number seems as out of place. But get on with the story! They didn't make Shah Rukh suddeny dance with the team in Chak De! Bring on the fast forward button, yo!

So then predictable stuff happens: Rashmi gets selected, runs so fast two of the girls are don't like her. Of course the one who hates her is the super urban, super jealous daughter of the main selector Dilip Chopra (bad dude Varun Badola, who looks like he hasn't slept for days). The jealous gal wonders if Rashmi takes performance enhancing drugs or if she's really a woman.

I'm like, 'Duuuuuude! You gave the plot away!'

After Rashmi wins lots of medals for India, the league whisks her away (knowing she's tired and exhausted) and makes her go through what is an alarming fifteen-twenty minutes of cinema. She's treated so horribly in the name of random testing that you realise that the film actually starts here. How many people are complicit in the testing and shaming conspiracy? Unbelievable!

The aftermath is predictable. News cameras and cops treating Rashmi horribly, villagers calling her 'Mardana', her mother and brothers protecting her...

Along comes lawyer Eeshit Mehta (it's Abhishek Banerjee in glasses, speaking Bangla even though he's Mehta) who tries to tell Rashmi that she should fight the ban. And why the ban is unfair to women athletes.

The court case when Rashmi decides to fight it is a great idea, but the execution seems too weak. Hearing the lawyer compare Rashmi's unfair advantage with naturally high testosterone with Michael Phelps who has an unfair advantage because of longer arms and legs or Usain Bolt's super muscle, is just so blah. 

It's weird to see a lawyer using a white marker (so convenient!) on the glass walls in the library and make notations in his diary and believe that he's doing research for Rashmi's case? Does he not own a laptop? Whatevs! He questions Dilip Chopra's daughter who was the champ before Rashmi showed up but he doesn't ask the most logical question: was she ever tested because of her great performance? 

And the fact that they use a predictable way to prove Rashmi is indeed a woman made me groan. Estrogen and testosterone high at the same time in the body? Whaaaaat kind of science is that? They drew so much blood from her during the tests, nothing showed up? I didn't just groan, I wondered if Bill Nye the science guy would upchuck his morning chai latte watching that!  

Suddenly I find myself looking at how honest the story in Mary Kom was (despite all the other problems). They did not hesitate in calling out the Boxing Federation. This film on the other hand is too chicken to even mention that the story is inspired by Dutee Chand who was banned because of her high testosterone levels. Why make a movie if you think the audience is stupid?

Is Ted Lasso really a hero? Or just comic relief?

The name of the show is Ted Lasso, but yaaron, for me, the heroes of the show turned out to be Rebecca and Keeley. 

Think about it. If you've read pundits that teach screenwriting, you know all about 'a hero's journey'. Critics too will expound on the importance of a valid 'character arc'. After I finished bingewatching both seasons of Ted Lasso, I sat down to write how much of a fun watch it was. But...

Even though Ted Lasso throws zingers a mile a minute, but the best lines came from Keeley. 'Fuck me, you're wonderful. Let's invade France.' Keeley says this when Rebecca shares her secret of how to create self confidence before facing people for Nate. Keeley starts out as a 'social media influencer' famous for doing nothing at all. You want to shake her for the bizarre fuckboi relationship she has with a narcissistic personality like Jamie, and then love her more when she takes on the grim, grunting Roy Kent. Keeley loves the little girl (Roy's niece) enough to get dressed and knock doors to find a dentist on Christmas eve. How many gorgeous women (who can carry that sexy santa outfit!) will do that? 

Her ability to laugh at herself and her many gigs (the hotel video!) is brilliant. Plus, like a true hero, she is happy to put Rebecca in front and even loves Rebecca's best friend who calls her Stinky. No green monster at all! When she cannot take Roy's constant looming presence, she tries all kinds of things to let him know gently because she could break his heart. She's so nice even Nate wants to kiss her! And Jamie wants her back. How many women do we know who boast of their many conquests at the drop of a hat. But not Keeley. She's just perfect. Her character grows from a groupie to the owner of a PR firm. If that's not a hero's journey, what else is? 

Rebecca, starts out as a villain who wants to ruin her ex-husband's happiness by grinding his footie team into the ground, turns your heart into a mush puddle when you realise that she has immense inner strength. The ex is shitty, the people who enabled her ex are still working for her (Higgins), the male dominated owners groups treat her shabbily, and she has to find joy in the unexpected success of her team. She doesn't give up and includes Ted Lasso in her Christmas giveaway. When she eats those cookie fingers, she makes you hungry (more than Nigella does when she puts food in her mouth). Plus she looks gorgeous. Imagine walking in her shoes. That's a heroic figure in more ways than one.   

Many bows to Hannah Waddingham who plays Rebecca and Juno Temple who is Keeley. 

Everyone is amazed how Jason Sudekis manages to be so positive and despite having a shitty personal life, learns to manage a team (sort of) by pop psyching everyone and everything.

That should have been a hero's arc, but despite being such a positive person, he reminds me of the Sun that comes out at the beginning of Teletubbies. He just shines and the Teletubbies do the rest.

He doesn't know anything about futbol, and by the end of the second season he hasn't learnt anything either. Coach Beard learns about the game more. The only thing positive Ted Lasso does is give them homilies: Believe. And that sort of wears off after a while. The lads know how to play, Ted takes Nate's play strategies and uses them, trusting the passion Nate has for the game. 

His positivity is very disarming, and funny, but I felt more for his wife who wanted to leave him but cried. It's like seeing someone's newborn baby. You are taken aback by the red crying mass, but coo over it. You cannot say, 'Oh my gawd it's ugly!' So you cannot say you are a tad put off by so much of Ted Lasso's happy positivity. It's great, but is it enough to make him the one and only hero? 

The Christmas party at the Higginses was just such a reminder of friends and family getting together before the Pandemic, that I was touched. He wonders how everyone was going to fit in his tiny home, and when everyone shows up, does, he's happy to sit and share his home! Bringing food when you go for a party is such a natural thing to do, and no one tries to outbid one another on who brought what and how much.

Everyone knows that Nate flips because he's being ignored, and that sounds like like they wrote this role for a ten year old. He literally says, 'You ignored me, so I'm going to take my strategies and go (to the other team).' 

Coach Beard, especially the extra episode that was written in because Apple wanted two more episodes, seems to be so needless. I like him as a sounding board for Ted, and how he just nods instead of speaking. But he's only propping Ted, and that feels hollow after a while. But I love his chess dates...

Sorry if I sound like someone who wants to find fault with niggly little things, and I cannot try to make you believe I'm not. But when everyone and their uncle make a show sound like the best thing since sliced bread, I watch the show with a certain defense mechanism kicking in. 

That confession done, perhaps it's time to look at how show after show has men who who are not exactly qualified to do the job given to them, get away because they're 'nice'. Ted Lasso is like Harry Potter, a wizard who gets saved first by his mum, then by his friends Hermione and Ron, Hagrid, Sirius Black and Dumbledore but the hero of the books? Harry Potter. I always wondered why he's so great if Hermione has to fix his broken glasses! 

Anyway. Much has been written about Ted Lasso being the best example of what and how men should be today. Sure, if I had to deal with Ted Lasso brand of chirpyness every day in real life, I would want something much, much stronger than tea. And if you still believe he's super funny, I am sure you believe JC was a white man with blue eyes.