The trailer of the Shahid Kapoor sports drama Jersey left me underwhelmed. If it wasn’t for the language I swear I would have thought I was watching an instant-replay version of the Tamil film Jersey. Playing the loser dad of a cricket-centric son Shahid Kapoor’s hangdog expressions of defeat and dejection are exactly the same as Nani’s in the original.Even the dialogues in Hindi are a carbon copy of the Tamil original.
So what’s Jersey about? It is about a failed cricketer trying to redeem his selfworth by being a good father to his young son. The USP of the Tamil original was the bristling bonding between baap and beta played by Nani and little Ronit Kamra.
In the Hindi version Kamra is back as the son,the father this time being Shahid Kpaoor. But it’s all highly interchangeable and thoroughly redundant. Why remake a film when the new version seems to be exactly the same in mood treatment and execution?
Perhaps this is inevitable when the same director Gowtam Tinnanuri helms both versions.What we needed was another director to take the character of the fallen cricketer to another pitch.
As things are, the Hindi version of Jersey seems to have nothing new to offer. By merely changing the faces, the film doesn’t give off any fresh vibes. Good to see Shahid’s talented father Pankaj Kapoor as the cricketer’s coach. In the original an equally skilled actor Sathyraj had played the part.
Mrunal Thakur’s disgruntled-wife act hardly seem to ignite any genuine spark in the trailer. The whole idea of an out-of-luck father bonding with his son seems hopelessly repetitive . After seeing the trailer I can’t think of one reason why we must see the remake of Jersey when the original in Tamil is streaming , and with English subtitles.
“Every time I feel you cannot sink lower, you surprise me,” the wife tells her loser of husband.
A comment that holds true for mainstream cinema.