FREAKY ALI (U/A)
Director: Sohail Khan
Cast: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Amy Jackson, Arbaaz Khan, Jas Arora, Seema Biswas, Jackie Shroff
Running time: 121 minutes
If a biopic was made on Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s life, it would probably be called Freaky Ali, er, Freaky Nawaz. The story of an underdog who works fingers to the bone and defies all odds to rise to the top of the game, Freaky Ali is a case of reel imitating real. For Nawaz’s rise and rise is the classic underdog story: the son of a farmer who hung around the fringes doing bit roles for over a decade before becoming Bolly’s go-to man for all roles hatke.
In Freaky Ali, director Sohail Khan has a solid premise to work with — a boy making a living selling underwear on the streets converts his talent for hitting sixes and fours at the local bustee matches into swinging the golf club. Ali (Nawaz) has no understanding of the game, but his ability to hit the golf ball where no one else can makes him an overnight sensation and earns him the title of ‘Freaky Ali’. But what’s a film without conflict? Threatening to bust Ali’s dream run is five-time champion Vikram Rathore (Jas Arora) and a pack of gangsters whose betting stakes will go awry if Ali wins. All this — and then a bit more — make up the 121 minutes of Freaky Ali.
The first half of Freaky Ali is a breezy watch, all thanks to Nawaz. The little big man of Bolly holds attention from the get-go with a delightful scene in which he pulls out every trick in the book to sell his stock of cheap undergarments. Adopted as a toddler, Ali’s only goal is to give his mother (played by Seema Biswas) a better life. But that’s easier said than done and Ali finds himself becoming a small-time gangster — egged on by friend Maqsood (Arbaaz Khan) — to make some quick money.
But a hafta-vasooli ‘assignment’ takes him to the greens one day… and Ali finds himself bitten by the golf bug.
Despite Nawaz’s sincerity shining through in every frame, Freaky Ali stumbles more often than not. The second half is quite a drag, the gags and jokes are overdone and there isn’t really a high point in the narrative where you root for the underdog. Though some lines are laugh out loud, the humour, largely, is lowbrow, targeting everyone from senior citizens (an old man with memory loss is repeatedly referred to as ‘Buddhon ka Ghajini’) to homosexuals. And though the golf scenes are filmed well, for a viewer not clued into the game, they can be quite a yawn after a point. The Adam Sandler film Happy Gilmore — about an unsuccessful ice hockey player who becomes a golf sensation — may be the seed of Freaky Ali, but Sohail, also credited as the story writer, Bollywoodises his plot and people effectively.
Freaky Ali rests squarely on Nawaz’s shoulders and the man, as expected, delivers. Whether it is the victory dance after a successful putt, a bashful smile after a hug from his manager Megha (Amy Jackson, who nails the ‘get gorgeous’ brief but does little else) or the fun scenes as an awkward newbie on the greens, Nawaz is an actor at the top of his game. Seema Biswas does the tough mom act just fine, while Jackie Shroff’s cameo as a bumbling don is all kinds of #facepalm. And the only reason Arbaaz is in the film is because it’s a Sohail film produced by Salman.
In the end, watch Freaky Ali if you love the underdog. Especially if his name happens to be Nawazuddin Siddiqui.
