Striker is one of those movies which leave you with a surprised reaction. More often that not, you will not even notice this movie unless it releases during a lean week. You would go with almost no expectations and come out pretty happy that you watched it. Almost no marketing halla. No star power to attract you. No Reality Show appearances by cast. Its a very honest movie (And you can feel that). New story. Decent performances. Gripping Script. A couple of very well written dialogues. Some nicely executed scenes. Its one of those movies, you will not fall in love with but still would like it. Give it a dekko if you have some free time at the weekend. I'm sure you will not be disappointed.I just wish they would have taken a slightly more credible cast (Please remove Sidharth and Aditya pancholi and take more credible 'actors' ) and marketed the movie slightly more aggressively (even the poster made it look like a B-grade movie only) so that more people could actually come to the theaters to see this movie. Its a cause gone lost because people are just not 'interested' enough to watch and are missing on a pretty good movie.
Plot: The movie is a (declared) inspiration from a series of true stories happened in a small locality called malwani duing 19992 babri riots. It travels between the late 70s to the early 90s and is a story of a young carrom player who gets entangled in the carrom mafia because of his family circumstances. He doesn't want to play for/with them but he has to. There are sub plots of the local underworld manipulating the hindu muslim equation during the babri masjid riots, Two love stories, A hindu-muslim brotherly Friendship also which actually take the movie ahead in a pretty smooth manner.
Performances: I think Siddharth could not do justice to his role there. It had immense potential and he seemed fake in a couple of sequences. His voice doesn't add any positives either. Aditya pancholi (in his 'as fake as you can get' scarred face )was a perfect example of miscasting. Anybody else could have done wonders to his role there. But to me the actual 'hero' of the movie was Ankur Vikal (who also featured in Maqbool and Slumdog millionaire in small roles) who plays a cocaine snorting, over energetic, high on life friend who motivates the hero to start playing again. He is absolutely fabulous and reminds of Deepak Dobriyal of Omkara and Chandan Roy Sanyal of Kaminey. Seema biswas does okay in a couple of scenes she has. Others all have done a pretty decent job and you never feel uncomfortable anywhere.
Music: 6 Composers. Yes the movie has 6 composers and all the tracks are pretty good. A couple of them especially Cham cham sung by sonu nigam remind of A R Rahman and i was actually wondering if Rahman has composed those or not. Yun hua by Vishal Bhardwaj reminds you of Kaminey title track. Maula has that typical Sufi feel and is definitely good. Overall a pretty good album to have.
Technicals: Cinematography is crisp with some really good close (especially night) shots. Pretty good there too. Background score by Amit Trivedi helps the story move ahead. Especially towards the end when the intensity increases and he uses a bass guitar to provide that thumpin feel. Amazing it was. Although much was desired in terms of production quality. The sets actually looked like sets and that was a thumbs down from my side.
Positives: Gripping Script. Fresh Story. Decent Performances. Good Music. Great Background score. Some Very Good Dialogues.
Negatives: Miscasting (especially aditya pancholi) . Almost No Promotion. A couple of sub plots (like the second love story) not required.
Overall : Definitely a watch if you are not saving for My Name is Khan next weekend (!!!) You will not be disappointed.
Feel-O-Meter: 7/10