Worth a watch. Review on Hip Hip Hurray - Bollywood

Cast: Raj Kiran, Dipti Naval, Shafi Inamdar, Nikhil Bhagat

Director: Prakash Jha

Released in the year 1984, the year of release of “Saaransh” and “Jane Bhi Do yaron” two all time classics of Hindi Cinema, Hip Hip Hurray was first feature film of director Prakash Jha (of Ganagajal Fame)

This one of the rare films that has school sports as its background (the other movie which I can remember is “Jo Jeeta wohi Sikandar”). The film portrays a sports teacher’s journey into the students’ hearts, channelising their raw energy into right direction and making them reach victory against a million odds.

The story goes like this. Sandeep Chowdhary (Raj Kiran) is an Electronics engineer waiting for a final call for a job from a Computer firm based in Mumbai. In the meantime he decides to take a job of sports instructor at a school in far flung town of Ranchi. There is no sports culture in this school. His school football team loses badly to rival team. The rival coach Shafi Inamdar taunts him for his team’s performance. Sandeep throws a challenge for a rematch. While building a team for the rematch Sandeep faces lots of problems. A group of undisciplined and rowdy students led by Raghu (Nikhil Bhagat) opposes Sandeep in all possible manners. The parents of the students, the school administration and fellow teachers all of them put obstacles before Sandeep in his endeavor to build a first class football team. A fellow colleague at school Dipti Naval is the sole friend and moral supporter of Sandeep. Whether Sandeep overcomes these obstacles? Whether his team beats the rival team? Does he return to Mumbai? To Know the answer please watch the movie.

Director Prakash Jha has successfully portrayed what a person goes through while making changes to existing system. The director has portrayed teenage school life in a very realistic manner. Bunking school, disobeying teachers indulging in vices like smoking, gambling, infatuation for teachers as shown in the movie must have been experienced by many of us during our school days. The directors also bring forward the general attitude of the Indian parents and teachers towards sports, how the young students are discouraged to play sports. Even today the situation hasn’t changed much (India’s performance at the Olympics and other international sporting events is a testimony for this)

Rajkiran as a spirited sport instructor does justice to his role. Dipti Naval doesn’t have the scope to show her acting skills in this role and she is simply wasted. Shafi Inamdar as a pompous and overconfident coach of rival team has given a very good performance. Nikhil Bhagat is equally good in his role of head of a group of rowdy students. Nikhil in fact was nominated for the Best Actor In A Supporting Role at Filmfare awards 1984 which was eventually won by Anil Kapoor (Mashaal)

The biggest drawback of this movie is its background score. The background score does not match with the theme of the movie. The second drawback of the movie is it lacks energy that must be a hallmark of a movie made on such subject. Unlike “Jo Jeeta wohi Sikandar” and “ Laggan” where you are literally forced to sit on the edge of your seat and adrenaline rushing through your veins, Hip Hip Hurray fails to emote you.

Despite drawbacks the movie is a worth a “Dekho” and only way possible to watch this movie is to buy a VCD which will cost you Rs. 88. (I haven’t come across this movie in any of movie channels or video libraries)