This movie takes "Hockey" from Chak De India and "India's fight to Independence" from Lagaan and churns out a pretty decent narrative. I believe it also has some shades of a few true stories from here and there but the disclaimer in the movie clearly states it is a work of fiction. Akshay Kumar is excellent as always - and rest of the cast has done a great job too. But the tricky thing for the director would have been the set-up required for the pre-Independence era such as the cars, the attire, etc. as well as the European crew required for the 1936 and 1948 Olympic games portrayed in the movie - all of which has been realistically portrayed. Although it lacks the 'wow' of Lagaan, the movie is still good because of the twists and turns - thanks to India's freedom struggle, success and, of course, the Partition. The Indo-Pak relation has been shown in a very warm & brotherly manner which seems so right & natural considering we were all one nation before someone drew an imaginary line. How did the term "arch rivals" really come from, one wonders...? Apart from the freedom-struggle related twists, there are other turns related to politics within the Hockey federation, feuds between team players, "teamwork vs Individualism", etc. - all of which make the movie definitely watchable.
Rating: Good
