Old Wine:
Last year’s Nyad, was the real-life story of long-distance swimmer, Diana Nyad, who at age 64, finally fulfilled her dream of swimming across the Straits of Florida, a 110-mile journey in shark and jellyfish infested waters. She says at the end, “Never give up” and “You’re never too old to chase your dreams.” The key word here, being ‘dream’— in her youth, the champion swimmer had attempted and failed to complete that major achievement in a swimmer’s career.
When Akshay Roy, writer and director of Vijay 69 (on Netflix) picks up the germ of the idea to make his film, it is simply about an elderly man, who is stung that his best friend could not list any achievements in a eulogy at his funeral, when he was feared dead. Right from the phoniness of this incident, the film tries to push every button, but fails to engage the viewer in the struggle of the protagonist.
Vijay Mathew (Anupam Kher) does not come home one night, and the very next morning, his family and friends organize an elaborate funeral, at which his buddy Fali (Chunky Panday—bad wig, worse accent) cannot remember any accomplishments, which is not the point of an eulogy, in any case. But the character is Catholic just to have that scene. To make him ‘different’ Vijay is foul-mouthed, and comes up with cusswords like “isabgol ke rasgulle,” along with the usual profanities.
The widowed 69-year-old retired school swimming coach lives in a large bungalow in what looks like a Parsi colony in Mumbai. His sole achievement was winning a bronze medal in a state swimming championship years ago. On a whim, he decides to participate, not in a swimming event, which would be credible, but a triathlon, when he has no prior history or current interest in athletics.
The plot moves exactly as expected – his senior citizen friends laugh at him, his daughter shrieks in indignation, the triathlon association rejects his application for obvious reasons. However, as it happens only in the movies, every time a door is slammed, somebody from the past just happens to walk in to open it. Then there are the standard training sequences, in which Vijay huffs and puffs and falls down several times, without even a bruise to show for it.
The villain is a neighbour (Dharmendra Gohil) with a grudge, who does not want the spotlight stolen from his son Aditya (Mihir Ahuja), who is also in the event as the youngest ever participant. So this fire-breathing neighbour tries everything to get Vijay disqualified, including getting a TV reporter to discredit him. The hysteria on the national news about some small local event is laughable.
Vijay’s unexpected friendship with Aditya is the sweetest thing about the film—the young chap is nothing like his father and is chafing under pressure himself. His marketing expert girlfriend, and the colony’s resident vlogger (with millions of followers, seriously?), join Vijay’s side, and even the daughter stops nagging for a change.
Make a list of all underdog and sports film cliches, and Vijay 69 has all of them. Right from successful NRIs humiliating Vijay for his humble vocation, to the spirit of his long-dead wife hovering to cheer him on, to that old favourite song that puts the wind beneath Vijay’s feet.
The film seems to have been written for Anupam Kher, who pulls out all the stops in his effort to make Vijay lovable, too bad the bland film does not let the viewer feel his despair or his triumph. The most forgettable ‘zero to hero’ films at least managed that much.
(This piece first appeared in rediff.com)
