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?
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