IMDb #217: Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India

Source: Wikipedia

A four-hour Indian movie about cricket.

I didn't know what to expect when I buckled down to slog through this thing.

I'll tell you what I didn't expect: entertainment.

All that to say, it's totally worth it.

Despite the exotic setting, a rural Indian village in 1893, the story pulses with timeless familiarity. The farmers pay an annual tax of crops to the British (the titular Lagann), but this year there’s a drought. In a fit of pique, a British officer challenges the Indians: beat the British at cricket, and no Lagann for three years. Lose…and it’s triple Lagann. Basically a death sentence.

So the cheery bumpkins get to practicing. Unfortunately, they have no idea what they’re doing. They might as well have challenged Korea in StarCraft, or the United States in competitive eating. It doesn’t help that cricket’s rules are utterly bonkers.

It’s a classic underdog story, boosted with fatally high stakes and spontaneous Bollywood song-and-dance sequences. Seriously, there’s a song celebrating CGI rainclouds (spoiler: don’t get your hopes up), a team recruitment song, and a Krishna mythological parallel to justify the requisite love triangle.

The characters are instantly recognizable. There's the staggeringly charismatic protagonist; the coy love interest; the big bruiser; the hothead; the mole, whom everybody trusts for no reason; and the flock of asshole white people. However, being India, they must invoke the caste system — the team's not-so-secret weapon is an untouchable with a withered hand. He becomes pitcher. Naturally.

When it finally arrives, the big game takes three days.

Like the movie, a grueling ordeal, but tremendously rewarding.

224 minutes.