Review: 'Lahore'

Combining sports and politics is not an easy thing to do. But then it's not that difficult either, considering the two are inextricably intertwined specially in the Asian subcontinent. Debutant director Sanjay Puran Singh Chauhan dares to visit the forbidden territory.

The script accommodates a great deal of the sporting spirit as seen in the perspective of Indo-Pak politics. Within that ambitious framework, Chauhan weaves in the human relationships that make a leap for warmth and then stay stuck in semi-sterility. The film has too much to say on sports, politics and human nature. It isn't able to say all of it in a lucid language.

Chauhan has chosen a unique sport like kickboxing to spotlight the process of cultural assimilation that underscores all the perverse politicking that goes on at the surface level between the two countries.

The Indian and Pakistani coaches played by Farooque Shaikh and Sabyasachi Chakavarty are seen to be sportingly at loggerheads, but 'Lahore' takes the spirit of sportsmanship across the border with more seriousness of purpose.

In the boxing ring, the game gets deadly when the Indian kickboxing champion Sushant Singh is delivered a deadly blow by his Pakistani opponent. A churning point in the narrative is arrived at in restrained rhythms.

This is where Chauhan's narrative comes into its own. The dilemma of the deceased kickboxer's younger brother Veeru (newcomer Aanaahad) to preserve his sporting spirit in the midst of high-voltage mutually-destructive Indo-Pak politics is built into the plot with architectural astuteness.