Film Companion Critics Review Gold And Satyameva Jayate

This Independence Day saw the release of two films – Reema Kagti's Gold and Milap Milan Zaveri's Satyameva Jayate. Gold is a fictionalised retelling of the the Indian hockey team's gold medal victory at the 1948 Olympics, the first as an independent nation. Satyameva Jayate is about a vigilante serial killer on a mission to rid the police force of corrupt officers. Here's what our critics had to say about the films:

Gold

Anupama Chopra's review

The straitjacket of the sports film seems to have flattened her distinctive voice – this is a director whose first film features a couple who turn out to be superheroes. But here, there is no irreverence or edginess – Gold is a straight narrative told with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. The beats are predictable. And yet, Reema manages to make them effective. By the time, the hard-earned victory came, I was genuinely moved.

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Rahul Desai's review

Akshay Kumar is the reason Gold feels like Chak De! India without the Chak De. It's mostly due to him that director Reema Kagti (Talaash) and co-writer Rajesh Devraj assault Gold with the greedy grammar of modern-day studio packages. The hockey motifs are the same: the center-forward conflict (Amit Sadh and Sunny Kaushal fill in for Preeti Sabarwal and Komal Chautala), Federation villainy, infighting and even the gameplay. But there's more – we see images from Tapan's marriage (casting a Bengali actress only exposes Kumar further), his phases of depression, romance, inspiration and ideation.

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Sucharita Tyagi's review

What happens is the script fails to commit to anything enough for you to feel strongly about it. A lot of small conflicts arise but are resolved immediately in 2-3 scenes, never to be spoken about again.

Akshay Kumar as Tapan Das provides the narration, which seems unnecessary to be honest. But he's also the team's assistant manager, who is also an alcoholic, who also has a permanently shrieking wife with whom he gets a romantic song. He's also fiercely patriotic and loyal to the sport of hockey. He's also naive at places but also too smart for his own good at some. Most of the film revolves around him and his personal victory.

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Satyameva Jayate

Anupama Chopra's review

Satyameva Jayate is an excruciating film. It's soul-crushing in exactly the same way that director Milap Milan Zaveri's last film Mastizaade was. Except there the visuals – Sunny Leone in various stages of undress – were easy on the eye. Here there is blood and broken bodies and scorched flesh. By the end, I was fervently praying that after this, Milap goes back to making terrible sex comedies.

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Rahul's Desai's review

There's a twist at the interval of Satyameva Jayate that left me truly gobsmacked. Mostly because I couldn't really believe that legitimate human beings are given millions of rupees to execute these ideas. With full consent. Without a gun to their heads. Or kerosene on their bodies. In 2018. The Gods must be crazy.

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Sucharita Tyagi's review

In this cat and mouse game, the only loser is the audience. And our hearing abilities. Because the film is too loud. With its sound as well as its approach.

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