Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal

The most awaited sports action drama of the year… Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal starring John Abraham, Bipasha Basu, Arshad Warsi, Boman Irani and Naveen Andrews. Well the only thing audience waits for after getting inside the theater is "When this crap is gonna end?"

Its a trend these days to make sports based movies. But the only thing related to sports in DDDG is the title and one or two goal scoring shots. Following the league of chak De India goal takes everything what chak De stood for and beats it to death. In fact goal defies all the basic norms of a sports flick. There are no nail biting finishes, no sight of inspiring football and yeah no motivational speeches. Director Vivek Agnihotri made an average debut with "chocolate", a bad but stylish adaptation of Usual Suspects. But in Dhan Dhana Dhan goal its tough to find one good scene in this whole movie.

The situations are bizarre , the characters are shallow, the soundtrack is awful, the sports action is no where to be seen and the Script is a disaster. Goal is about the south hall football club which is in deep trouble. They haven't won a single match in the last 20 years they don't have any sponsors and now the club faces the fear of being thrown out and hence destroyed forever. The team captain Arshad Warsi owns a kebab corner" GLassy Junction", the team consists of few beer gulping pot bellied laggards who are more interested in blaming each other for their losses then to concentrate on the game. But for a team you need a coach." BAM comes Boman Irani" a great footballer of his time who is now a pathetic loser drinking his life to death. Sounds familiar... wait for it there is more to come. Now a team also needs a striker who by the way happens to be the dimpled cheeks John Abrahim. But Arsad Warsi and John despise each other. So the racism hits John and he is out of his Firang club and joins south hall. But a team also needs a physician... Kaboom here comes Bipasha Basu the sexy sister of our captain who by the ways is waiting for any opportunity to throw herself on our striker John.

After collecting the team Vivek Agnihotri focuses on so many sub- plots of racism, patriotism, father son relationship and in the end he delivers a product which only taran adarsh can watch and appreciate "read it here". But he sets one thing right and that is right from the beginning of the movie he clearly communicates to the audience what to expect in the coming 2 hours. The opening 10 mins of the movie sets the bar so low and when the south hall club owners dies with a ridiculous heart attack( I m assuming it was that only) you cant do anything but laugh and hence when the Item Number pops up in the streets of London ... nobody is amazed. The stupid football players who flaunt their torso after hitting the goal and you wish they should never score again.

A football team consists of 11 players where every individual plays a crucial role but DDDG consists of 4 players with one or two cameos from the remaining cast. To be honest till the end of the movie i was not able to count 16 players who form the team. I guess Boman Irani doesn't believe in substitute. Nobody except John looks like a player.

Director knew from the beginning that this epitome of stupidity wont fetch him money on the box office that is why he tried to rake in some moolah by idiotic product placement. There are so many things which are wrong about DDDG but the major blame is on the script. The movie fails to connect with the audience on any level and that is because Vivek agnihotri never tries to do that. By the time the movie reaches the climax and start singing their anthem( which by the way made no sense coz it was not used properly) you just stop caring who wins or who loses because you will be looking for the exit doors to open.

1/5

I am always a sucker for movies about sports, and this is no exception. Went by for a premier show, and I wasn't disappointed. Although I can't say that I'm blown away either. The producers ran into copyright issues with the title of the movie, and had to change it at the last possible moment. I would really have been drastically disappointed had this been a rip off from Santi Munez's tale in GOAL: The Dream Begins. Thankfully it wasn't. Instead it is *inspired* from another old movie named Major League featuring Charlie Sheen, the only difference, that was about baseball, and this is soccer. Add to it some Bollywood masala, and you got yourself a classic.

The story is simple. There this town Southall, which is basically an Indian community, and they have their own movie theater. But they have failed to pay for their soccer grounds and the city community wants to sell it off. So the only way to save their grounds is to win the championship, something that the club hasn't managed a single time. But as it turns out, they get the team together, and somehow pulls it off. LOL, there is a interesting side plot featuring John Abraham's character and his family history, also an interesting scene in the Old Trafford dressing room. It's always nice to see the Theatre of Dreams.

Bipasha Basu is excessive corny than necessary. John Abraham flaunts his biceps throughout. Arshad Warsi gives a reserved performance, Boman Irani is fantastic as ever. There's also real nice performances from Rajendranath Zutshi and Dalip Tahil. Yet, at the end of the day it fails to live up to hype. It happens to be a sad remake of yet another lesser known Hollywood movie. The music is good, although sometimes it feels blatantly unnecessary. The camera work, cinematography is good. And those soccer skills owns !! 8/10 !!!

Yash Raj Films' Shimit Amin directed movie - Chak De India (2007) can deservingly claim to be the best sports movie made in Bollywood. If we set aside the biopics of the Indian sportspersons released during the past few years, we have got some good and some average sports movies made in Bollywood. The pioneer in this line was Prakash Jha's debut directorial venture - Hip Hip Hurray (1984).

Watching Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal (2007) renders a feeling to revisit both Chak De India and Hip Hip Hurray though it was released barely three and a half months post the release of Chak De India. As the movie progressed scene by scene, a sense of deja vu enveloped me and I strongly felt that the script-writers (Anurag Kashyap-Rohit Malhotra-Vikramaditya Motwane) must have sought inspiration from both these movies when he were writing the screenplay of Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal. Nevertheless, it is to be admitted that it's overall a good movie which entertains as well as motivates albeit in a different setting, i.e., Southall, England.

The main character of the story is not a human-being but a Football club named after its location - Southall United Football Club which has been a loser in competitions for decades and whenever it competes in any event, nobody gives it any chance to win. Now the trouble is, the place of the club taken on lease, is to be vacated unless the lessee pays the due amount of three million pounds to the lessor who is planning to build a shopping mall and a theme park at that place. To save their club, their ground and their passion for Football, the club members which are all Asians, get an opportunity in the form of the English Football League whose winner is going to be paid a sum of (exactly) three million pounds as the prize money. Can they avail the opportunity and make the impossible possible ?

Well, we know the answer. After all, it's a masala Bollywood flick. But then the end of such movies is bound to be a predictable one. The highly admirable two movies mentioned in the beginning of this review are no exceptions in this regard. Now the thing is, despite the predictable end preceded by an adrenaline rushing climax, if the movie is able to keep the audience glued to the screen with unwavering attention, it's a success of the filmmaker. Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal achieves this end only partially. Studded with Bollywood clichés, this movie is unduly long with confused characterization of certain principal characters. The writers and the directors have tried to connect certain facts and tie loose ends in the end and they have also raised the issue of racism (anti-Asian bias) prevailing there but despite (and because of) that, the narrative meanders through confusing lanes and make this lengthy movie an exhaustive one for the spectator.

The most confused character is of Sunny Bhasin (John Abraham) who considers himself a British and not an Indian (his parents are Indian) but does not give a damn for the racial bias imposed on him. And his professionalism is based not on professional ethics but money and allied things. Other characters like the captain of the Football team (Arshad Warsi), his sister who happens to be the physiotherapist of his team (Bipasha Basu) and the coach who is an ex-player of this club (Boman Irani) are relatively less confused but confused beyond doubt. It reduces the credibility of the story despite the fact that the writers have incorporated the real life incident of the Munich Plane Crash happened in 1958 in which eight players of the Manchester United Football Club were killed, into the narrative.

Racism is condemnable irrespective of the part of the world where it is practiced. However imposed patriotism for their country of origin also does no good to the immigrants. Patriotism or love for the motherland (of self or the parents) becomes lifeless and artificial once it is worn on the sleeve. And that's what the writers and the director (Vivek Agnihotri) could not understand. Love for India (or Pakistan or Bangladesh) once shown off unnecessarily by the characters of the story, starts giving the look of something plastic.

The Football matches have been shot well and the art-direction is also up-to-the-mark, the director and the editor could not render the stuff available with them the form of a slick movie. Hence the movie though entertaining, impresses in patches only. Though Football is widely perceived as a violent game, showing the players in a violent mood almost every time is irksome. The romantic track of John-Bipasha is quite unnecessary. Ditto for the item song - Billo Rani. Albeit the music composed by Pritam is good, especially the title track. Background score and the dialogues are so-so.

Acting is good and all the principal as well as the supporting characters have done justice to their roles though Bipasha Basu's character hardly matters in the movie. Ditto for her (and Arshad Warsi's) younger brother's character. John Abraham has a great screen presence which make up for his limited expressions and acting talent. Boman Irani has done a pretty good job as the coach. His speech to his players before the final match is on the lines of Shah Rukh Khan's speech to the female Hockey players in Chak De India but it contains a very good message - ultimately moments only matter whether it's a match or a life and hence they are to be seized to shine and cherish later on, rest is all routine.

Hip Hip Hurray was a Football film only. If some other quality Football movie that comes to mind, it is Bend It Like Beckham (2002). Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal could not match the quality of these classics. It's a decent timepass and a one time watch notwithstanding.

© Copyrights reserved.

i love soccer. i don't normally watch bollywood movies other than the few good ones that get out in a year. however, because of the football angle i decided to give this movie a shot. i suffered. john and bipasha have proved beyond doubt they can't act and the idiotic and shallow characterization only makes it worse. this movie's script/dialog/screenplay/direction is so bad it makes boman and arshad look bad. now those two guys really have a flair to enliven proceedings but even they cant save the movie here. probably the only sensible thing they did was get a soccer choreorapher or whatever the guy who sets up the soccer play is called. but then that also is driven by such a clichéd script it is really not worth anything. if you like football you'd rather just switch to a champions league match to get your dose of soccer action. i rate it 1/10 for making such a bad movie about a sport i love. after this movie i puke every time i see bipasha.

Goal proves to be better than Vivek Agnihotri's earlier movie Chocolate.

This movie is about a Football Stadium which is leased to South Hall United Club. But cause of poor form and bad run in the league South Hall didn't had much money to pay money for renewing the lease. Now they have to win the league to win the money and renew the lease which is their only hope. So the captain of the team Arshad Warsi brings in Boman Irani as the new coach of South Hall United Club, former legendary player of the club. Boman thinks they have a good defense but the attack isn't that good so he ropes in John Abraham as the striker. John's father is a big fan South Hall Club and always wanted john to player with his community.

will Jhon, Arshad and Boman will be able to win the league for the first time for South Hall Fans ????????

Arshad was very good in the movie but i didn't felt same for John. Boman again proves why people loves him as an actor. Bipasha character is just to provide a love angle not much of weightage but bipasha was good in the short and sweet character.

The climax is one you can say the best part of the movie. So Goal is a one time watch able movie.