The only Bollywood film on this list, and it’s a 4-hour epic about playing cricket to liberate the citizens of Champaner from the rule of the British empire.
Picture it: India, 1893. The British are being dickbags and collecting tax (lagaan) from a small farming village in exchange for protection from their violence. This is shitty and immoral in general, but there is a drought this growing season, and no crops to collect tax from. Their king pleads to British Captain Andrew “Fuckface” Russell, to use his influence to allow them to pray at a distant shrine for it to rain. Instead of helping them, Captain Fuckface humiliates the vegetarian king by asking him to eat meat as payment, which he refuses to do. To punish the king for having religious conviction, Captain Fuckface doubles the taxes of a village that literally cannot grow anything because they have no water.
Meanwhile, the villagers are losing their shit because they see a few rain clouds and think their luck is changing. They preemptively celebrate with the jauntiest of musical numbers that is so excellently performed, choreographed, and filmed that I couldn’t help but shuffle in my seat while I was watching it.
Unfortunately, the clouds pass them by, and their disappointment is only punctuated by the news they’re expected to pay double tax. A group of the villagers decide to appeal the decision to the king, even though they know it’s coming from those fucking British Imperialists. They find the king hanging out with their oppressors while enjoying a game of cricket. Bhuvan, our hunky main character, cannot keep his opinions to himself and remarks their cricket game looks like something stupid children play. Captain Fuckface overhears him and offers him a deal – In three months, if the villagers can beat him and his cronies at a game of cricket, they will exempt them from taxes for 3 years. If the villagers lose, however, they will be forced to pay 3x the tax for 3 years. Bhuvan, going against the will of literally all of his friends, agrees to the terms.
When the party returns with the news that Bhuvan has committed them to a high-stakes game that literally none of them know how to play, the villagers are understandably upset with him. They try to convince Bhuvan to apologize and ask Captain Fuckface to take back the deal, but he refuses, as he thinks the opportunity to succeed is too great, and he will not apologize for doing something that he believes will benefit all the citizens.
His friend Gauri, who is not-so-secretly in love with him, decides to help him with the task of recruiting players. They conduct covert operations to try and learn how cricket is played by observing the other team at their practices. Captain Fuckface’s sister, Elizabeth, happens to see them watching the game, and offers to teach them how to play. She believes her brother is being unfair, and her loins feel all hot when she looks at Bhuvan. They accept her help and train with her in secret.
Now that they have a coach, Bhuvan and Gauri appeal to the village again to recruit more players. Another catchy song later, they convince enough people to form a team.
Elizabeth, who magically learns Hindi in a day, helps the men train. Gauri is suspicious of her intentions, and makes it known as much as possible that she’s ride-or-die for Bhuvan and Elizabeth should back the fuck up.
When her subtle hints aren’t enough, she sings about Bhuvan’s wandering eye. He tells her she has nothing to worry about as he has no interest in this bland white woman.
All these musical numbers are so fire, I love them so much.
In a twist, Lakha, a woodcutter, is jealous of Gauri’s love for Bhuvan, as he wants her for his wife himself. Instead of accepting she doesn’t feel the same way about him and moving on to literally anybody else, he decides to go to Captain Fuckface and inform him his traitor sister Elizabeth is coaching the villagers. Even though this would force his entire village to pay triple tax for 3 years, Lakha’d rather do that than see Bhuvan win, which is fucking insane. It’s fucking insane. Captain Fuckface Smugsmirk asks Lakha to join Champaner’s cricket team and sabotage them from the inside. Afterward, CFF confronts his sister Elizabeth about helping them, and instead of killing her, he just tells her very sternly she can’t do it anymore.
Elizabeth ignores his wishes and continues to train the villagers in secret, because she is in love with Bhuvan. She tells him, in English, how she feels, which he does not understand. Gauri can read the room, however, and storms off because she’s afraid Bhuvan feels the same way about Elizabeth. He, instead, confesses his love to Gauri in a song that is half a beautiful confession of emotion between a new couple, and half Elizabeth filming a tampon commercial.
After a short 5-minute detour where Bhuvan just happens to end the centuries-long caste system, the day of the big cricket game arrives. This takes up the last 90 minutes of this movie. Apparently, a cricket match can take 3 days to play?! HOW. HOW IS THIS HOW CRICKET WORKS.
After the :sigh: first day of cricket playing, the team realizes that Lakha is trying to throw the game, and the village, very reasonably, tries to kill him. Bhuvan saves him, and Lakha feels so much shame that he decides to help them win.
After the :siiiiiigh: second day of cricket, the villagers are still significantly behind in points because of the massive lead the British gained on the first day. Gauri leads a prayer appealing to a higher power to help them win the game.
On the :siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh: THIRD DAY of the cricket match, things are looking bad for the British when the citizens of Champaner (mostly Bhuvan) start getting runs left and right. In a move of desperation, the British pitcher basically bowls the little ball thing into members of the Champaner team and injures like 3 of their batters so they can’t continue to play. I’m not even going to look up to see if this is a thing that they’re allowed to do, cause in the context of this movie, it apparently is. Also, it’s the British Empire, and I’m sure they can make up whatever fucking rules they want.
Turns out, I give zero shits about cricket, and still don’t understand the basic rules even after watching this movie. Gonna be honest… I sped up the last like 30 minutes because I just couldn’t cricket anymore. To clarify, it wasn’t bad – if you like cricket or sports in general, this could TOTALLY be your jam. But after 3+ hours of this movie and zero interest in any sport that isn’t hockey, I couldn’t slog through it at normal speed.
Oh, and to the surprise of nobody watching this movie, the British still end up losing and the entire village celebrates.
The British surprise everybody by keeping their word, and exempt the province from three years of taxes. Embarrassed by the loss, the British decide to abandon their rule over Champaner, which sounds totally realistic. Captain Fuckface is shipped off to Africa as punishment, and Elizabeth leaves with the rest of the encampment after she realizes she has zero chance with Bhuvan. She returns to England and never marries because Bhuvan has her heart until she dies, which is just… so grim. He’s cool and all, but sweetie, move on.
This movie is great – it’s filmed beautifully, has a ton of likable characters, high plot stakes, and absolute bangers of songs. If I cared about sports I’d personally give it a 10/10, but seeing as I’m a dumb half-canadian whose brain cannot focus on any sport that doesn’t require ice, I give it a 7/10.