Pravin Tambe Kaun? (Hotstar+Disney)
Starring Shreyas Talpade
Directed by Jayprad Desai
Rating: ***
Sports bio-pics are coming out of our ears nose and throat. But here is one that was really needed. The story of Pravin Tambe who kept trying persistently to get into national cricket until the age of 40 when cricketers are retired, is so inspirational , its consumption should be made compulsory in every school curriculum.
Happily the writer Kiran Yadnyopavit and director Jayprad Desai have opted to keep the tone light as Pravin is shown going from one obstinate attempt at fulfilling his dream to the next. His friends are shown to be in the loop .They support Tambe’s dream in intangible ways.What would we do with our dreams without our friends?
Shreyas Talpade, one of our most neglected contemporary actors who had played a deaf and mute cricketer in Nagesh Kukunoor’s Iqbal, unmutes his persona ,flowering into the character of a cricket aficionado who will see himself in the Top 12, come what may. It is a bravura performance where Talpade doesn’t allow Tambe to falter and stumble into self pity even once.
If Tambe had no support from his militant mother and nagging wife to filfil his dreams, Talpade gets more than ample support from the two actresses playing the roles. Laxmi Kadam is splendidly out-of-control as a bully of mother pounding Talpade into conformity.
The wife is played by that brilliant grossly neglected actress Anjali Patil who always reminds me of Smita Patil. Patil is pungent and compassionate as the cricketer’s wife.
The narrative covers the entire gamut of Tambe’s tryst with cricket , from his early days to his spectacular debutante at age 41. Shreyas Talpade possesses the body language and the emotional wherewithal to make Tambe look believable in every phase of his life. Interestingly Talpade underplays the Marathi accent and chooses a more pan-liberal accent and tone.It works!
While the central performances navigate the biographical element adeptly, the editing and the storytelling momentum are not quite in place. Too many flashbacks spoil the broth. What remains intact is Tambe dogged determination , his obduracy to make his dream come true.
If Tambe’s scenes with his quietly persuasive coach don’t work it is because Ashish Vidyarthi gives the coach’s character an implacable spin that doesn’t go well with the film’s mood. At one point Talpade’s Tambe gets fed up of his coach’s tight lipped ignore act and asks, “Aapko problem kya hai humse?”
This is the story of an ordinary man with not such ordinary dreams of making it into the cricket field at at any age. If life begins at 40 then Pravin Tambe’s life began at an age when the average cricketer hangs up his pads.
Pravin Tambe Kaun? might not be the pitch-perfect sports film that we think it would be.But it has a certain loopiness about it that goes well with the protagonist’s stubborn refusal of all rationale advice. I want what I want, is Tambe’s slogan in life. We second that emotion.
