Let’s talk sport: the evolution of sports dramas

It is not difficult to create drinking games around Inside Edge, Amazon Prime’s thriller series set in a fictionalised version of the Indian Premier League (IPL). How about a shot for every time Vivek Oberoi does a Richie Rich Thing, like describing a caviar dish or chilling in a hyperbaric chamber (a scene that felt as if its only purpose was an unnecessary Bane reference, using Oberoi’s oxygen mask)? And that is just off the top of this writer’s head: rest assured, the show is chock-full of storytelling clichés. All you have to choose is your poison — and what you are drinking, of course.

Despite the frankly laughable, half-baked melodrama of Inside Edge, it benefited from India’s perennial cricket/showbiz fixation. Today, it is one of the most watched Indian shows on the streaming service, marrying current-day Bollywood production standards (which are better than decent) with Indian TV writing standards (which remain abysmal as ever).

The patriots

With India’s continuing obsession with the IPL (currently in the middle of its 11th iteration), it is no surprise that Amazon has confirmed a second season of Inside Edge. Say what you will, one quality that sets it apart is that the show has surprisingly little time or patience for nationalism (even if it does throw in a couple of ‘son of the soil, pride of the nation’ type dialogues for old times’ sake).

Even when the conversation turns to match-fixing in Indo-Pak games, there is not one breast-beating line, the screenplay instead focussing on the fixers’ betrayal of the sport rather than the nation-state. This feels counter-intuitive because of the way nationalist themes have been brought up again and again in Bollwood. Whether it is Salman Khan’s Sultan, Aamir Khan’s Mahavir Singh Phogat (Dangal) or Shah Rukh Khan in Chak De India, a saccharine scene involving the tricolour was always around the corner. Cricketers, wrestlers, hockey coaches, in the end we were all cheering on the tricolor during crucial scenes.

Film critic Tanul Thakur reckons that the nationalism angle has to do with the way Bollywood films present themselves — as fables with moral centres. “I feel an important thread tying most of these films is the impetus on them being ‘inspirational’,” he says. Thakur may as well have been talking about the slew of Nana Patekar-Mehul Kumar collaborations in the 90s, where themes of nationalism, corruption, social reform and counter-terrorism dominated; stuff like Tirangaa, Krantiveer and Kohram. “If you see nationalism with respect to cinema, it has become a sexy concept because it is accessible. It is one of the easiest forms of a ‘takeaway’. There are few chances that your narrative — and the themes related to it — would be questioned,” he adds.

Up to par

Despite the less-than-evolved nature of the writing in these films, one has to concede that technically, Indian sports dramas/biopics have come a long way. The sports action in films after Chak De India has been notably realistic — and often at par with international standards.

With the rise of streaming platforms, Indian audiences have now seen a wide range of Hollywood and international sports films, not to mention documentaries. A film like Dev Anand’s Awwal Number (1990), where Aamir Khan and Aditya Pancholi played professional cricketers — and looked as far from the part as humanly possible — would be the laughing stock of Bollywood now. This is, in part, because professional players and coaches are hired by production houses. This helps the actors look convincing. For instance, Sushant Singh Rajput hits a mean version of cricketer MS Dhoni’s (who he portrayed in the biopic MS Dhoni: The Untold Story) whiplashing ‘helicopter’ shot, all wrists and steely forearms.

Then there is the sports documentary, a genre yet to take off in India, but with a few encouraging examples already. Last year’s Sachin: A Billion Dreams was essential viewing, despite being basically a hagiography. Not one tough question was asked of Sachin Tendulkar throughout the film, and yet this writer could not peel his eyes away. How could anyone, when we were all breathless in front of our TV sets for 20 years, watching that man, internalising his every tic and gesture? Netflix India got it right recently, with the superb 40-minute documentary Ladies First, about Deepika Kumari the 23-year-old Olympian archer from Jharkhand. Kumari is one of India’s unsung sports heroes. At an age where most cricketers are struggling to establish themselves, she is already world number five in her sport (she even became world number one previously).

In the pipeline

Also added on Netflix recently is the wonderfully-told Borg McEnroe, about one of the great tennis rivalries of all time. The year 2018 will see several anticipated sports films coming out of Hollywood — the Helen Hunt-starrer The Miracle Season, the comedy Uncle Drew (which features NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal in a supporting role), and, of course, Sylvester Stallone’s Creed 2, starring flavour of the season Michael B Jordan (Eric Killmonger from Black Panther). Closer home, audiences await several confirmed biopics in the works — the Ranvir Singh-starrer 83, about Kapil Dev, the untitled Abhinav Bindra biopic starring Harshvardhan Kapoor, as well as Saina, based on the life of badminton champion Saina Nehwal.

This is where I feel the new line of sports dramas can make a difference: we need more films to focus on lesser-fancied sports and games. I mean, the mere thought of a mainstream Bollywood film about golf would be laughable 10 years ago. And yet, today we have Freaky Ali (not that I enjoyed the film at all). Give us a kabaddi epic, a table tennis family saga or at least one short film about fencing. And if it doesn not set the box office on fire, be a good sport about it.