The 83 Cricket World Cup is one of the most illustrious sporting events in Indian history. At a time when hockey and football were more popular than cricket, nobody in the country even cared about it, winning the World Cup as an underdog by defeating world giants like the West Indies and England is a truly remarkable accomplishment.
Kabir Khan’s efforts to convey that magnificence to the big screen are admirable. It’s surreal to see that era play out on the silver screen. It will reintroduce you to the legends of the 1983 World Cup, whose legacies are almost forgotten now. Cricket is becoming India’s most popular sport and BCCI is the world’s wealthiest cricket body. Indian cricketers are currently the highest-paid athletes in the world. The 83 World Cup was the event that permanently revolutionised Indian cricket. The film 83 depicts our cricketers’ modest beginnings, how they washed their own clothes to save a stipend, how cricket destroyed their marriages, and where India had little regard as a cricket-playing nation. This film elicits a wide range of feelings and makes you proud.
When it comes to the story, there is none in the film, and none is required , since the impact of this historical event is self-sustaining. Ranveer Singh portrayed Kapil Dev, who led the Indian team to victory. He does an excellent Kapil Dev impression. Everything about him is good, from the appearance, to the body language, to the cricketing technique. However, we have conflicting opinions about Ranveer’s delivery of the dialogue. His dialogues don’t always feel natural, indicating that he’s attempting to imitate Kapil Dev. Jiva, who plays the character of K Srikanth, is another noteworthy performer. 83 is not a film in which the plot revolves around one or two characters. It follows the Indian squad from the beginning until the end of the event. So from Pankaj Tripathy’s PR Mansingh, the team manager, to Boman Irani’s Farooq Engineer, every character has their own moments,
The drama depicts in the film has a lore-like aspect to it. Sometimes it’s overly theatrical, and other times it’s abstract. They didn’t care about perspectives; all they cared about was the account told by the athletes and other witnesses to the actual occurrence. But we’re curious about what other choices Kabir Khan had. They also attempts to investigate the event’s broader implications for India as a whole. In a diverse country like India, 83 world cup victory provide an opportunity for its citizens to come together as one nation, ignoring their differences. From soldiers listening to the radio in bunkers among bomb blasts to a woman naming her newborn kid Kapil, all may appear fictional, but this is India, & India is beyond fiction. The cricket mania began with 83. Who knew there would come a time when Indians would look up to cricketers as role models? There was a scene where kid Tendulkar’s said “Main bhi cricket khelunga”. Even the God was inspired by the 1983 World Cup.
Let’s have a look at some of the technical details. It’s 2021, and those bats, helmets, and shoes are all obsolete. Except for the Cricket ball, we don’t believe any additional accessories from that era are still manufactured today. They had only one resource to begin with: footage from the World Cup. They worked tirelessly to convince us that we were watching matches from the 1983 World Cup. All the actors did an excellent job in perfectly adapting the cricketing techniques of those athletes. In the music area, Pritam did an outstanding job. Every match is followed with a song, which expresses every emotion in the film. Arijit Singh’s Lehra Do is both inspirational and emotional. Scorecard are not shown on a regular basis in some matches, which deviates from the cricket viewing experience.
The film 83 is a love letter to those legends, to that era, and to India. We’d like the movie to be more emotional and aggressive. We Indians would love to hear thousands more stories from the 83rd World Cup. Keeping emotions aside, we can say that 83 is not a story, it is a mosaic. With all the heavy drama, music, emotions, and celebrations, it is Indian cinema in all its magnificence.
We hope that this film will be subsidized and granted tax-exempt status in the country. So that more people can see it in the theatre and the producers won’t lose money. We salute the entire 1983 World Cup team for their valiant efforts and for inspiring many generations of young athletes.
