Apne review in Mumbai Mirror

Bout of depression
Mayank Shekhar in Mumbai Mirror

Fairly early on in this movie, a desi event-manager and television channel head briefs Dharmendra's retired, boxing Olympic gold-medalist and coach, on his plans of a global boxing champion. If you're interested, he intends to fight a contender each from every continents. The winner would face the reigning king, whose name you hear recurrently thereafter: Luca Gracia. Immediately the final sequence of the film springs to your mind, though you're at least an hour away from the climax. It has to be Sunny Paaji, with his bare, hairy chest knocking out the said (but not yet seen) black beast to a thunderous applause. Since there isn't much else to do here, you wait for the inevitable final bout. It's better than gazing at an uncomfortably fumbling Dharmendra, a poor parody of his younger days. He plays an obsessive, depressed, almost psychotic father. Given half an opportunity to turn on the histrionics, he smashes his knuckles against glass. Back in the day, he had almost made it as the heavyweight boxing champion of the world, but for unjust doping charges levelled against him. He now pines for the same belt that his son could never earn him. The eldest one (Sunny Deol), gave up the sport because there is no money in it in India. If you see the media attention given to boxing in this movie, you would disagree. The younger one (Bobby Deol), meanwhile, has lived with a disabled hand since childhood. He whacks his numb limb in desperation, watching his drunk, depressed dad. This is when he is not dancing with that hand sewn to the pockets of his jacket. The house-wives weep abundantly meanwhile. This too shall pass. In a moment to befit movie miracles, the younger son's hand gets cured out of thin air, almost in a jiffy. Bobby's Karan Singh, a singer otherwise, begins to train through the day. He'd never held a glove in his life before. Before you can spell Mohammed Ali, our man is out there challenging the world champion in America: Lucaaa Garciaaa… Finally, the moment has arrived. The younger one suffers an unfair injury. Be certain, the wait is over, and thank the screenwriter, we can all go home. The elder brother, Sunny Paaji, will roar like a lion, if not sting like a bee, or float like a butterfly. But he will do the rest. The movie is Apne Bhai Ka Badla! Works. You get the plot (or its lack thereof). You get the picture. At best there's a word to be spared for some boxing sequences. I noticed a name credited against "boxing choreographer" on posters. This perhaps explains a rare professional touch on this tearful tacky-land. Given the setting, references to Hollywood textbooks (Rocky series, Million Dollar Baby etc) are expected. Especially when a song called Bull's Eye plays in the background, as if it were a tribute to 'Eye of the Tiger' from Rocky 3. But don't let that confound this hinterland movie's genre. This is your family-action flick, an erratic mixture of machismo and melancholy. It means that whenever the ladies and gentlemen of this family are home, they sob their hearts out. On a ring, they knock the rockers off. Pretty much a serious bout of depression all the way, I say.
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