Sachin movie is the justice our God of Cricket deserves. It is an extraordinary biopic documentary that takes you on a joyride of your life trying to show what you deem closest – all things cricket.
If you are an Indian, love for cricket comes inbred. And if you are talking cricket, there is only one name that resounds in every corner of the country. Sachin! and it goes on two times in unison. That’s how we remember Sachin – the God of Cricket.
You hear that uproarious clamour, goosebumps ensue. That’s the power of chanting a mantra they say. Well, they got that right at least.
To be absolutely and hopelessly in love with mortals, so much that you epitomize them as Gods – it’s in the nature of mankind. It’s one hard to beat wont that we will never get over. And centuries from now, people who wouldn’t know about this gem of a man, will blindly pray for him and worship his idols. Weird stories will layer up, the good deeds will become blessings and what not. You can write that down, that’s how Gods have flourished everywhere. It’s an imminent reality that’s on the cards.
To break that stereotype from actually creating a story of its own walks in Sachin himself with his story on the big screen. James Erskine does him impeccable justice with a documentary to help us store his face as is in our minds, not to be obliterated by casting an actor, not to be decimated by the contortions of ugly visual effects – mistakes M. S. Dhoni: The Untold Story committed.
He lets Sachin himself do the talking while he assembles real life footage from his life to connect the dots. When you let someone narrate his/her life story, you know instantly justice has been already done. Because who else knows your life’s story better than you?
Plot for the Sachin Movie (Spoilers Ahead)
Sachin A Billion Dreams begins with a prologue set up to show us how cricket has been uniting us as a country ever since India‘s participation in the sport. It was a generation in the making and it was India’s bright face trying to shine against the world. It is beautifully portrayed via footages from the time, everything populous and real.
That’s when a little mischievous lad was busy playing pranks on his friends, lightening up neighbor’s cars, and what not. He was yet to realize his dream but was constantly accompanied by his elder brother Ajit Tendulkar playing regular cricket. Being gifted a bat at an early age was like being handed the weapon meant to conquer the world.
Sachin acknowledges and respects his bourgeois upbringing to teach him valuable lessons of his life, considers the hard work put in by her mother in her job to be the primal force of diligence in him.
That Cricket Dream
It was the World Cup that India had won in the year 1983 that had set the benchmark for Sachin’s dream. With that elation, capered in his conviction to achieve a similar feat for India.
At even a young age, his performance was germinating and his brother Ajit decided to put him under the aegis of Ramakant Achrekar. Growing up, there were ordeals he was supposed to conquer, like his coach keeping a coin on the stumps, asking others to bowl him and earn it. Sachin would stay at the crease every time and earn the coin himself on countless days.
Regular practice helped in carving him as a cricketer. His hectic cricketing schedule was making things hard to cope and so he moved in with his uncle and aunt who lived in Shivaji Park.
His major breakthrough happened when he came into the limelight for staying on the crease alongside Vinod Kambli for an unbroken 664 run partnership. The rest is history, as they say, but the one that we have lived every second of our lives.
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Humility and Love
If you listen to his conversations and interviews, it is hard not to melt. Every time he spoke you can feel a humble child trying to do his level best, even in things that are off-field. The one interview where he is being asked whether he liked all the fame that came tagging along, you can feel the warmth in his answer. That unfazed nod and the “it’s alright but that isn’t the thing I am after” look is going to make you fall in love with this man again.
The film also steers on numerous occasions towards depicting the fun and light side of Sachin’s life, be it be with his personal conversations with Sara his daughter or pulling his son Arjun’s pants off on a recording, or having fun with his friends, everything is so beautifully cut in that it brings a smile to your face.
Few know about the love life of Sachin. The Sachin movie brings into the vanguard some of those exciting moments we hadn’t come across. It’s a great love story that happens between Anjali and Sachin, the import of which we realize by watching their delightful moods as they narrate it. A lot of people already know about the sacrifices Anjali had to make in letting Sachin follow his passion. Even though it might not seem apt to some, it is a cost one should be willing to pay when you have a prodigy for a partner.
Controversies in Sachin A Billion Dreams
Sachin Movie doesn’t delve into branding people when surrounded by controversies. It is a fact everybody knows about, and yet James chooses to show what is important – moving on.
That one event on Eden Gardens when India didn’t play well, reshowed us that ugly face of Indian crowd that is hard to fathom. It is one hideous page in the history of cricket that shows the ruggedness of it all. It is hard to believe there were/are people who are quick to deliver justice by one bad day. It’s like they are yet to understand the concept of failure, and that sports arena where worlds collide should be nothing but a slave to their will. If things don’t pan out the way they want it to, they would completely annihilate it.
You instantly hate the mob for it. It is a coarse cold heartless crowd, and with burning effigies, damaging properties, bringing harm they prove they are akin to savages, and that it is players’ moral responsibility to keep the savages entertained. That was one alarming reality that Sachin movie acquaints us with. It is like staring into a mirror that shows us our wicked side. Only it was in the uneducated uncouth past.
The Saddest Moment in the Sachin Movie
One of the saddest moments in the Sachin movie lurks right before the intermission when Sachin’s father expires. Frames play a symphony of emotions that’s hard to escape from. You give in to his exact words, and it is hard not to cry for Sachin’s loss.
Sachin shares what he felt, how he felt and describes every feeling for you to empathize. Tears follow. It is a reality that awaits everyone right around the corner. Being in someone’s shoes who has to go through such a nightmare is immensely heartbreaking. James Erskine makes those frames even more poignant by showing hundreds of slippers and shoes so as to depict that’s what you see when you are entering a house full of people when you are down and your eyes are all teary.
Rewatching Sachin deliver that interview with a heavy heart, and feeling the exact amount of despair and sadness he must have been carrying at that moment, would rip your heart out. When the cinema hall lights up for the interval, you are afraid people are going to see you in tears.
Remember all those times Sachin got out and how badly scathed you were from the inside. That pin drop silence, as if something horrible had happened? Just imagine being in Sachin’s shoes for a second and multiply that anger, frustration by 100. That’s how he felt every time he failed to score. He truthfully states that and it makes you want to revere him even more.
Can you imagine a mortal being judged for every second of his life? A man constantly playing in a shitstorm of pressure with expectations that could overwhelm you into defeat? Well, this mortal is no mortal, I say!
The World Cup Moment
Despite the ups and downs in the life of Sachin be it be injury or him struggling with his form, the finest moment in his life, or in any Indian’s life would be that big World Cup moment that sealed us a new cup. Watching Dhoni hit that six in style, a finisher that announced India’s arrival as new cricketing champs was a moment worth reliving a thousand times. It will once again put you in the right mood, overwhelming you with bazillions of emotions.
Watching everybody once again dedicating it to the guy who truly deserves it and every accolade in the world is deeply satisfying. You get to relive the World Cup vibes yet again. You go home extremely satisfied as if India had reiterated the wonder.
With a finisher like that Sachin’s journey as a cricketer was already being decided by the world. Everyone was talking about it, and even Sachin knew it in his heart. Despite he was still abounding with cricket, he decided to let go of the game.
That big retiring moment, it almost felt like it was yesterday. Watching Sachin acknowledge all the important people in his life and our prayers in the form of “Sachin! Sachin!” was deeply plaintive. Watching him go touch the pitch again will make you cry your eyes out, and so it did all over again.
The Final Verdict
Sachin movie is as if someone stripped away that one cricketing part of you and tried to show you your entire history tacked to cricket and Sachin on the big screen. You have lived all those days. You remember numerous minutia from matches but it’s like a highlight that goes in and out of your favorite matches.
It has strokes aplenty to make you go nostalgic with a snap of a finger. Ads and channels you have watched growing up. Interviews that you have seen live, and matches that you have watched whole. It is a dive into the reminiscent waters of cricket that you have lived all your life with Sachin waddling alongside all the time.
Each one of us has a Sachin memory, and it resonates with a particular time in our life. Mine was, whenever Sachin got out I would hit my clueless brother with a pillow saying, “It’s because of you, he got out. It’s your fault.” So many superstitions and so many memories.
It was hard to part with him even on 16th November 2013. It is hard to part with him even now. He will forever be in our hearts with that one song that all of his disciples sang together. It’s a song that anyone could sing, “Sachin! Sachin!” Tap – Tap – Tap.
Check out the trailer of Sachin Movie here:
Sachin
Pros
- Outstanding Biopic
- Shows every aspect of Sachin's life
- Brilliant Direction by James Erskine
- Great Documentary
- Pays Tribute to a legend
Cons
- Leaves out some moments like Nervous 90s
- A tad lengthy by the end
- Those who are not Sachin fans wouldn't understand the fandom
