The Struggle of 83
*Image courtesy belongs to the owner. Copyright Infringement not intended.
*I haven't watched the movie so this is not the movie review.
*My observations on how the movie was presented.
83 is another ordinary movie that was released on 24 December 2021. People shockingly call it a disaster at box office. Because we expected a lot to happen over the milestone in India’s cricket history does not mean it has failed. I feel a 100 CR. box office is not the merit.
Making a movie on a historical event is not an easy sweep. It was ambitious of Kabir Khan to take up such a tough subject. It was exceptional of him to take actors from all over the country to seem more real. Rather a Punjabi trying to speak in a Tamil accent. A project where every cricketer was training their actor. Bringing them all together could be arduous. They have all invested their time to train an actor to play in their style. Imagine the pressure the actors lived under to look like someone and hit the chords with the audience. Such a movie, if expected to easily make in the 100 Cr club is I think a fair desire.
Of course they wanted a lot to happen over this world cup drama. But in my opinion it got pitched a little less. Kabir Khan’s iconic venture did not come across as appealing as Dhoni did. I have my observations why 83 could not do justice to the historic 1983 victory. It had all the potential to re-celebrate the win but it did not reach us. Let us start with the most general factors that affected the movie.
Covid - Which businesses and markets have escaped the virus? You name it and it’s covid-19. The waves continue to devastate. Cinema is always approached by choice and treated as a luxury. And luxury can be avoided if you wish too. The ones who deliberately kept away from theaters were for all the good reasons.
Vaccination - Because theaters are vulnerable medium to get the infection the fully vaccinated certificate is compulsory in the theaters and malls. And even if the number is highly appreciable of vaccinated individuals in India there is a big chunk of the country which is still pending with 2nd dose. They by default can’t even go close to the theaters. So the bravehearts who really wanted to watch were mandatorily protected under the unpredictable virus guidelines.
Money mindedness - After the lockdown drama a bigger part of society is struggling to meet it’s both ends. A middle class family which has dealt the lockdown with or without pay cuts has suddenly witnessed uncertainty. The fact that this world can be locked inside with minimum resources is still being absorbed. Yet most of us lived peacefully with wholesome meals. This Pandemic made us realize some expenditures can wait. Movies will keep coming.
OTT habit - Pandemic reintroduced us to the OTT platform. Even the digitally illiterate bunch of people started enjoying the web series and subscribing more. Very soon the industry identified it as an easy way to reach their audience when the doors of the cinemas are closed. Why not lay the red carpet digitally instead of waiting and delaying the release? Hence we are all waiting for 83’s grand premiere on OTT. It will one day. But I think looking at the glory of the movie’s subject, if it was made for all, the movie should have been released for all taking in consideration the current behaviour of the viewing audience. OTT! It could have been a bigger deal.
People have come this far to understand that an unnecessary cost of movie tickets and popcorn can be replaced with sitting at home and enjoying entertainment at their own pace. Life is always bigger than any leisure.
Perhaps, the other movies that were released like ‘Pushpa’ and ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ around the same time have seen a huge success keeping all the above factors in mind. The reasons that the critics and the analyst chalk out that it is a documentary or some typical classes and masses formula, sound completely pseudo. Cricket is for all. You do not see a class and mass in any sport. It’s a matter of following. And Cricket has a huge fan following. The first world cup that India won under Kapil Dev’s captaincy may not have that bigger fan following like one under MS Dhoni’s captaincy but India knows about it. If we still rule out the possibility that people are not very much aware of the 1983 days, are they not even aware of who Kapil Dev, Sunil Gavaskar, Sidhu, etc are to watch a movie made on this victorious team? Certainly something went wrong in such an advanced age, technologically backed, strong social media presence, reels and stories on all platforms, whatsapp to make even a picture viral, twitter with trending hashtags etc. Why could the movie based in 1983 not make its mark in 2021? Now let us talk like the critic?
How was the movie portrayed to a common man?
I had a very strong intuition that this will not see the success like ‘M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story’.
Who Played Whom? - You had to tap on the curiosity of the audience about who is playing Sidhu and who is Kirmani. It was not just a Sports Docu-drama. It was a movie that included a lot of cricketers and support staff. It was a team of 20+ actors and we don’t know who played whom. What does a common man look for when a movie is made on true events or some eminent personalities? Who is playing those roles? Let’s face it that all the actors were not popular faces. The director definitely had to choose a smart way. He could probably piggy bank on the cricketer’s fame.
If Jiiva was not a big name for all in India, Srikanth was. If Dinker Sharma was not well known we definitely knew Kirti Azad. They just did not publicise big names like Sunil Gavaskar and Ravi Shastri who are widely regarded. Even today I had to wikipedia the names. A name like Neena Gupta who is also in the movie lost nowhere. They just did not flaunt that starcast to the world to see. They did make an instagram page and posted a lot of pictures but did not pictorially bombard you with relevance like it happens nowadays. Why couldn’t a simple picture with the real and reel gavaskar in that stance go up? They should have introduced you way earlier to all the players through Social media. A lot of youtube channels have put up those videos. They expected just a pic of handsome Nishat Dahiya whom most of us don’t know could tell the world he is Roger Binny. No! Social Media is not so bothered. It has a strong scrolling behaviour. If you still scroll down that insta page you will see Happy Birthday posts in numbers. No praiseworthy content.
Trailer - The very first impression of any piece of work. While watching the trailer closely I saw less of the 83 journey and more of Kapil Dev in 83 world cup. Nothing wrong. Kapil Dev as captain deserved that honour. But to be really honest it wasn’t Kapil Dev you were seeing, it was Ranveer Singh who was given all the spotlight. Did we require Deepika in the trailer? Once may be! We required more moments from the matches to excite us. We required names next to the glimpses of each actor playing a player's role in the movie which the trailer literally just ran through. Remember who plays whom? The trailer, if noticed, is crafted beautifully. But you fail to understand who is speaking to Kapil Dev. When the names actually appear it is namesake as you hardly identify the actor and it becomes difficult to connect the dots at the very end of the entire trailer. But we identified Deepika Padukone playing Ranveer Singh’s wife in the movie. It was her familiarity that stood out. This is why exactly they could just avoid her presence to make others evident in the trailer.
I understand a 3 minute A/V cannot give you a lot of scope. But we have seen movies having 2-3 trailers to hit your brain. This movie needed that strategy. A theme or mood for each trailer. It shouted a teaser for each character. If the team has released it I haven’t come across any.
Ranveer Singh - You know when people identify you with the real personality in the movies that are biographies or biopics? When both share some of the similar traits. No individual is similar. But there is a certain trait that is very close to the real. Why did we accept Sushant Singh Rajput as Mahendra Singh Dhoni? Because they both share a characteristic of being cool, calm and shy boys. Having said that, Sushant remained to be Sushant while being Dhoni on the outside when filming and promoting the movie. He acted well to maintain that image of Dhoni off camera. Ranveer Singh forgot to maintain that identity of a shy gentleman, Kapil Dev. Ranveer Singh overpowered the man himself who had a stronger identity than him as the movie was about him and his boys. While promoting the movie Ranveer jumped, danced and continued with all his silly acts that he always does. And Ranveer Singh being Ranveer will continue doing that. He has his own energy which he cannot handle himself. He was expected to be Kapil Dev and he couldn’t stick to it off the field. It isn’t just physically that an actor needs to match but also behavior and mannerisms.
Promotions - The only time you get to market and sell. How do you promote the film which is based on somebody? Definitely you cannot ask for their time to accompany you everywhere you appear. So what do you do? Send Ranveer and Deepika at Bhurj Kalifa and show their romance from Dubai? How irrelevant! Even if the UAE was giving you that honour I think a Deepveer moment was not important. What were you really promoting? A movie on 83’s world Cup win, Ranveer-Deepika romance or see how I made a multi-starrer and exhibited none? It is actually questionable. Why couldn’t the team promote the rest of the familiar actors. You had a minimum of 11 actors to promote. You had Saqib Saleem who is a well known name along with Hardy Sandhu, Amy Virk, Sahil Khattar. Hardy Sandhu just gave a hit number of his own ‘Bijlee’ before the release. They have their own fan following if not the one like Ranveer and Deepika. Why weren't they used to promote? Didn’t Khan want all the players to get equal exposure for their effort in the world cup matches? Adinath Kothare, I know him because he is a big name in the Marathi Industry. Even he wasn’t seen on Marathi TV channels. There was a father-son duo from Maharashtra where the son played his own father’s part, Sandeep and Chirag Patil but people hardly spoke about it. Jatin Sarna, made it big with Sacred Games. Where is he? Pankaj Tripathi got accolades from everywhere when the trailer released for his work. But even this actor was kept away from the engagements.
The team did not go the traditional way. Neither did they target digitally. I do not remember watching 83 on television the way it should have been. The PR and marketing was so stereotypical is what you get to see when you analyze the 83 promotions. I think this movie needed special treatment with a better promotion plan. You had actors from various states. Had they reached at least those states they would have succeeded a bit more. I assume there was a day dedicated where both reel and real stars shot with various media houses. It’s all over the internet with the same setup when I tried to search for interviews. However how many of us actually go to youtube and search for such content nowadays? We love our feeds. We pour our hearts on even Taimur going to school if it comes up or some random girl doing a hook step. That should have been taken into consideration. Small snippets of what streamed as a 30 min or 60 min episode would have potential to influence. People like to watch 2-3 minute videos. Whatsapp is equally powerful as Instagram. And you have to take that benefit. Its shareable content that the creators look for. That Balvinder Sandhu and Kapil dev conversation is so much watched from the press conference.
Every team should research before promotions. It is not always innovation that creates history. Sometimes you go with the herd. A promotion is the last chance to sell even a withered leaf.
They could strategically create series of posts and stories and throw them to the world. Trivia, BTS, bloopers can never fail you. Trainig sessions from the production stage, for example, post release is still a win win to keep the movie fresh and running. Reviews and appreciation from the industry and cricketers will never be a medal. Bollywood should understand this soon.
When Kapil Sharma invited the 83 heroes on his show around 2 years ago, the episode was a bigger hit than the movie. Just the real heroes and their stories kept us intrigued. It was a lack of engagement that this movie could not impress us to come to the theaters and enjoy.
It just came out as another ordinary movie. I will call it a theatrical disaster. OTT is still a ray of hope and they should come back and release with a bang.
At the end all I saw was Allu Arjun won over Ranveer Singh by all means! And he is also on OTT.
