Goal Review

Rajappan · Posted: Sat May 12, 2007 8:06 pm Post subject: Goal Review

Director Kamal's latest boarding school story and coming-of-age feel good romantic movie is glossy and looks like a Bollywood candy floss film. He has made it with a lot of extravaganza, technically chic, terrific music and picturisation, and a vivacious cast of newcomers.

But the film lacks a solid storyline, Ravi Kumar's script has nothing new and too artificial for the audience to stomach it. Kamal is one director who understands the pulse of the young audience in Kerala who are weaned on a steady diet of Hollywood, Bollywood and Kollywood movies.

The director pays a lot of attention to presentation and feel of the film. His characters wear designer clothes, speak in Manglish ( a mixture of English and Malayalam) and sing songs in exotic locations. There is an audience for his kind of films, which are told with a lot of humour, colour and sentiments.

The story is set in an International school `Good Shepherd` in Ootty, where only the very rich can study. The hero Sam (new boy Rajith Menon) is a poor guy who is a grounds man at the school who assists the Football coach Vijay (Rahman). His wife Rekha (Jenny who is Meera Jasmine's sister) a teacher at the school and her sister Neetu ( new girl and Mumbai model Aksha) a student at the school live with him.

The school is efficiently run by the Principal (Captain Raju), and his staff. Meanwhile the girl at the school mess Maria (Mukta George) has a soft corner for Sam as she grew up with him. Sam has been abandoned by his father Victor Mukesh) a great yester year footballer, who now comes back to live with him after he becomes mad!!

The rich kids at the school especially top football star Felix is on drugs, and when Sam finds him having grass, Vijay gets him kicked out of the school. Felix swears revenge and goes to `St Xaviers` another school which has been winning all the football titles. Now Vijay takes Sam under his tutelage and along with the help of Neetu and other students gets him enrolled in the school, a 'la' Munnabhai style!

Sam is able to wear the jersey of the school and represent them, but others students in the team do not co-operate with him. At the same time Nitu feels offended when he does not respond to her, creating more problems for him. Will Good Shepherd win the trophy this year in the inter school championship? All this is told in the climax big clash on the football field!

Kamal's Goal falls a few yards behind the post because it has all the essence of a brat pack film with all gloss but is unable to score the winning goal due to lack of a strong and innovative script . Added to that why introduce the Mukesh character, just for some fake sentiments? Too much graphics also act as a speed breaker to the flow of the film.

This vanilla-coated story telling however has its moments. All the newcomers play their parts well. Rajith Menon stands out for a newcomer with his natural and spontaneous act, while Mukta George steals your heart, and Aksha looks beautiful. Rahman does a neat job as the coach, while the guy who did Felix role is riveting as the villain.

Vidyasagar's music and Kamal's picturisation are the high points in the film, especially the duet picturised in Phuket islands. P.Sukumar's camera feasts on the rich locales, and his multi camera set up to film the football matches adds grandeour.

On the whole if it had a better script, the film would have been as exciting as a football match, still Goal at two hours is a time pass entertainer.

Verdict- Time pass