Main Hoon Shahid Afridi

Bearing in mind the bash of a premiere yesterday, think of the cameos as family-support for Mr. Saeedand Shahzad Nasib's sure fire blockbuster; And, in case anyone forgets about either their or ARY Films' – who distributes the movie along with Mandviwalla Entertainment – place in the industry, this is one extended family.

The love part from the industry is infectious, but it never seeps into the feature film; at least not directly. Mr. Saeed plays Akbar Deen, a pro-cricketer who's the pride-and-joy of his family that includes a mom, a pop (Mr. Baig), a wife (Mahnoor Baloch) and son. Akbar gets implicated with illegal drugs after he gets drunk by an orange juice drink and a (quite revealing) dance item by Mathira (the song is Masti Main Doobi by Neeti Wagh and Shani). It is – quite literally – a flash, which dumps Akbar in a jail cell and bats his career out of the cricket grounds.

Years later, Shahid (Noman Habib), an on-the-breadline prodigy youngster from Sialkot who works the cash register in a local restaurant, pushes the owner of his local cricket club (Ismail Tara, playing Malick Khalid) to try the team for a Pepsi-sponsored tournament. A few beats later, and rather vapidly, Akbar signs up as the team's coach.

Their rivals, silver spoons who reach the cricketing grounds by choppers, are employed by Mian Asif Qureishi (Mr. Sheikh senior), and includes Mikaal Qureishi (Shahzad Sheikh), Akbar's son.

For those of us who are still biased to put MHSA along Chak De India, I have one thing to say: please don't.

Mr. Saeed's film written by Vasay Chaudhary, working from a scarred- underdog/least bet-team that wins the cup formula,devises enough deviations in its revved up pace to make the distinctions obvious. A few unresolved angles (the husband-wife split-up; the rich father-in-law vs. the cricketer son-in-law) do dig ruts within MHSA's narrative. Nevertheless these are just minor botches that are easily swept under the rug by the speed of MHSA's execution.

As performances go, I have a sincere advice for Mr. Saeed: stop acting for the small-screen.

Mr. Saeed, who mostly equips his acting arsenal with scowls and growls and a tear drop or two, kicks in some class nuances in unexpected nooks and crannies. And with 70% (maybe more) screen-time to his Akbar, Mr. Saeed becomes a central point of weight for MSHA.

Noman Habib, as the engaging rural Shahid Afridi, piles on the innocence, but more often than not his naiveté and unsophistication (acting wise) becomes rather apparent.Ms. Baloch is plastic, and like the most expensive kind is (unblinkingly) fixed in place. Ainy Jaffri, the big city girl with big,big eyes, who falls for Shahid is flimsy, because of the way she's placed in the film – rather like Asym Mehmood, Ainan Arif and Gohar Rasheed, who are fairly good to average depending on the scale and cliché of their exposure.

Mr. Arif plays Michael Magnet, a Christian who makes way for some minor obligatory racial biasness.Like every conflict, the resolution is nippy if not shrewd (case in point: the estranged father-son dilemma between Mr. Baig and Mr. Saeed, which piles up, only to open a separate narrative track). Sometimes – for example, the climax and the cricket matches – the hastiness works against the anticipation.

Still, for a bulk of its entirety, MHSA swaps between characters one ends up rooting for: the roll-call includes Majeed Maulvi, the slightly racist, short-tempered Pathan played by Humza Ali Abbasi, Mr. Sheikh's stereotypical villain Asif Qureishi and Mr. Cheema's brilliantly played Bashir Bhatti, a worthless, gambling self-indulgent father to Shahid. The only other actor who stands up to Mr. Cheema's vivid charisma and dexterity is Mr. Tara, whose presence even dominates Mr. Saeed in some scenes.

MHSA isn't unblemished as far as technicality is concerned. A few issues with color grading (sometimes apparent within cuts in a continuous location), camera/resolution/sharpness issues in cricket matches (and no, we aren't fooled into thinking we're seeing a televised broadcast) pop up and fade away, oft times by the sheer aesthetic diligence of putting on the show. This aesthetic diligence includes three groovy songs by composers Shani & Kami – Jera Vee (Shafqat Amanat Ali, Shani), Angreja (Momin Durrani, Jabar Abbas) and Masti Mai Doobi; Malaal, the fourth song sung by Rahat Fateh Ali, is an adequate space filler.

Syed Ali Raza (aka Usama), coming from a television background, is proficient in setting up cinema-quality frames with a dastardly penchant to throw the BG out of focus in close-ups. He is also quite practiced in executing film-level performances from a bulk of his cast (of course, the expanded gamut and resolution of the RED camera helps here).

The problem with the industry is that no one wants to appreciate a good mainstream family movie – especially from people within the film fraternity. I could hear murmurs about art and intelligence, as soon as I ventured outside the screening. For these self-made connoisseurs of the medium, I only point to the deafening applause the film collected two or three times.

A film that looks good, keeps you engaged, lets you unwind and then coerces (some if not all) to wild-cheering is a product well-made – and as the tickets will tell – well-sold.

Going into the theater at a high-end multiplex, I had high expectations from the movie. Apart from having a 9.5 IMDb rating, the movie had garnered much critical acclaim, which given the high level of cynicism among Pakistani critics is a rare feat. I am happy to say that this movie sets the tone for Pakistani cinema that (hopefully) will follow it. While it attempts social commentary, this movie is not a polemic diatribe against the system like "Bol" or to a certain extent, "Khuda Ke Liye." It's goal is to entertain and the movie does just that.

The story revolves around a small-town team aspiring to make it big and a player who aspires to reach the level of the legend that's Shahid Afridi. They find their coach in a framed and banished former cricket hero played by Humayun Saeed. No prizes for guessing where the story heads from here -- there are the usual love interests, the villainous rival team, a broken-family subplot and so forth, but all of this is executed with panache and the acting and script writing is decent. However what really works in the film's favor is some solid supporting performances from Nadeem Baig, who shows what acting greats are made of, and from Hamza Ali, who infuses some verve into the proceedings. The music score ably supports the production. Special mention to the the song-and-dance sequence at the start, which is nothing short of sensational.

The script does have a predilection for resorting to character stereotypes (which are incorrect), however given that MHSA is a first time effort by majority of the production team, this can be forgiven. Syed Noor, Shoaib Mansoor and the rest of the Lollywood old-school gang should take a lesson or two from the movie and start infusing some energy and verve in their cinema, because the audience generally pays to be entertained and not lectured.

Rating: ***** (1 additional * for being the first and getting so many things right)

The reason that propelled me to watch the movie besides its name & alluring adverts, was its rating of 9.4/10 at IMDb. And to say I was pleasantly surprised would not be wrong.

For people who were looking for dramatic displays of bloody fights and a typical scenes like the heroine trying to ?seduce the hero by singing him songs while she danced around him trying to contain her euphoria, this is certainly not the movie for them. The good thing about the script was it never deviated from the story line. Yes, the ending was a little abrupt and the role of the women in the movie was nothing more than 'forced.' However, the purpose of the film was pure entertainment and it did justice to that.

The people who deserve special mention are the young and upcoming actors and the script writer, Vasay Chaudhry for this brilliant piece of work. This surely will mark the start of revival of Pakistani cinema.

Awesome movie!!!

I think this movie breaks the record. All of you guys must saw this movie in cinema because this movie is awesome.

This movie provides the fully entertainment like drama, comedy, emotions, sports & romantic.

Hamayaun Saeed, Mahnoor Bloch, Shafaqt Cheema, Nadeem Baig, Farhan Maqsood, Hamza Abbasi(Molvi Majeed in film awesome acting), and also Javaid Sheikh all of you spur b acting. Especially Hamza Abbasi and shafaqt cheema your acting is too much awesome. I am big fan of you and also this movie.

To actually see a movie from Pakistan in which actors are talking and not yelling was a pleasant surprise but as the movie progressed it completely blew my mind off for being so real.

The problem with the industry is that no one wants to appreciate a good mainstream family movie – especially from people within the film fraternity. I could hear murmurs about art and intelligence, as soon as I ventured outside the screening. For these self-made connoisseurs of the medium, I only point to the deafening applause the film collected two or three times.

Rather than reading the reviews, you should be investing your time in watching this movie right away at the cinema.