When Pravin Tambe made his IPL debut at the age of 41, the entire country was wondering who this man is. The talk around this leg spinner elevated further, especially in the national media, when he took a hat-trick against Kolkata Knight Riders. All the mystery around this man and his journey towards not losing hope and making a debut at the age of 41 is finally unravelled in this biopic, Kaun Pravin Tambe.
Director Jayprad Desai has got a quintessential underdog story of a man, who believed even in times when no one else did. It’s a formula that, if executed well, can’t go wrong, and the filmmaker manages to curate an interesting screenplay with loads of dramatic and emotional moments. He manages to establish the struggles of his character well, which is primarily the reason why the rise leaves the right impact.
While you root for Tambe’s achievements in the finale and get inspired by his spirit of never giving up, there are moments that could have been shot in a better way, especially the family led scenes. The filmmaker resorting to humour in certain instances also divulges the mood of the film. While the background score is just about decent, the dialogues too could have been better. The cinematography is fine with the essence of Mumbai captured to perfection on camera, but then, that’s the beauty of this city.
Thankfully, the journey of Pravin Tambe is inspiring enough to make up for the flaws in the technical front. Talking of performances, Shreyas Talpade delivers a sincere performance, bringing in the right amount of maturity to the character. He modulates his voice as per his age and scores big time in that aspect. Ashish Vidyarthi gets to play a short yet important character in the film, which changes the tide of Tambe. He is earnest and makes his presence felt in limited screen time. Parambrata Chatterjee is fine, and so is the rest of the ensemble. It’s a decent film, but falls short on the novelty front, despite some well-directed dramatic moments, especially towards the climax. All in all, it’s an ordinary film to salute an extraordinary journey.