Neemuch is a town that has one claim to glory. A native son had scored the winning goal in an international soccer match against Iran. They erected a statue and held an annual tournament.
The main plot concerns a soccer team that keeps losing. Its manager is Pradeep, the uncle to the main protagonist, Meenu who doesn't care about soccer, but is a talented magician who is courting Iccha. Meenu is very extravagant in his courtship, but can't remember important details of Iccha and she breaks the relationship.
It is not too long before he finds another object of courtship. There are of course problems and he falls into similar patterns. His choice to pursue is Disha, an opthamologist who is very resistant to his very inventive ways of trying to impress her. By a cinematic coincidence her father is a famous magician who has been sort of a mentor for Meenu.
Tying these two tends together is tricky, but it turns out the father of Disha wants to test this upstart magician and decided Meenu needs to at least make the finals of a soccer tournament. Aside from the long losing streak and his own disinterest, Meenu has resentment against his uncle,the manager.
From here there are a few twists. Some elements to appreciate include love, winning, family and soul searching.
There is no pretense that the players are of international caliber, but the losers do improve. Does magic intervene? Well; very little. There is really quite the twist that causes a dilemma for all participants and it leads to another twist, most unusual for a sports film. Wait until the very end to appreciate the title.
The director Sameer Saxena was the director and producer.
Script was written by Biswapati Sarkar. There are some interesting twists that hold attention and a few character flaws that are dealt with.
Nilotpal Bora started out as an Assamese singer and has expanded to other languages and composing music. He composed the music and you can hear his vocals on most of the song numbers.
Soumik Mukherjee handled the cinematography. His film credits include "Thappad" (2020). Check: http://www.therealjohndavidson.com/2020/05/thappad-or-in-english-slap.html
Editing was done by Dev Rao Jadhav. His film credits include "Tevar" (2015) and "Badhaai Do" (2018). A delightful movie, http://www.therealjohndavidson.com/2022/03/badhaai-do-lgbt-film-from-conservative.html
Jitendra Kumar plays the magician. He loves in sequence two different women and proclaims his love while demonstrating magic. Very charming, but a bit egotistical. Jitendra trained as a civil engineer, but while at school became involved in acting. IMDB recounts that once he was forced to recite some lines as a gag and although he had not seen the film or was aware of the context (a speech by Al Pacino in "The Scent of a Women" 1992) he impressed enough of the seniors that he was recommended to the Hindu drama society where he met Biswapati Sarkar who later helped advance his career and wrote the script for this movie. Both women notice that he can't remember little details like their last name. Jitendra has been in numerous tv series and movies including "Gone Kesh" (2019) and "Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan" (2020).
Arushi Sharma played the love interest, an opthamologist and the daughter of a master magician. Credits include "Tamasha"(2015). Check http://www.therealjohndavidson.com/2016/02/tamasha-wonderful-story.html
Jaaved Jaaferi played Pradeep, the uncle to Meenu. His film credits include "Fire" (1996), "Earth" (1999), "8 x 10 Tasveer" (2009), "3 Idiots" (2009) and "Bala" (2019). Once known as India's first break dancer.
Manoj Joshi plays the master magician and father to Disha. He is a kind mentor, but protective of his daughter. Manoj started his career in Marathi and Gugarati theatre before getting into films. Some of his credits include: "Devdas" (2002), "Bhool Bhulaiyaa" (2007), "Guru" (2007) and "Hasee Toh Phasee" (2014).
In summary this is in many ways a typical romance comedy, but has enough twists to make it interesting for those who think they have seen it all.
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