Kai Po Che!

Three friends in Gujarat want to open a cricket academy. Ishaan is a former player, Omi is trying to get support from his family, and Govind keeps the accounts. They start with a small shop. Ishaan finds a gifted boy in the neighbourhood and begins training him; the boy is from a Muslim family. Then the earthquake of 2001 comes, the shop is destroyed, the debts mount, and the following year mass violence breaks out in the city. The three friends are separated. Abhishek Kapoor directs. The source is Chetan Bhagat's novel. Sushant Singh Rajput, Rajkummar Rao and Amit Sadh are in the cast. It is Sushant Singh Rajput's first cinema film; he came from television and became known with this part. The ground is real events: the Gujarat earthquake of 2001 and the mass violence of 2002. The film uses them not as background but as the direct cause of the breakdown between the characters. The subject is friendship spoiled by politics. Omi is drawn into a political structure through his family's circle, and the narrative does not make him one dimensional; how he got there is given step by step. The cricket passages are the liveliest part and are technically well shot. Its limit is the last section; the narrative speeds up as it gives the violence and the outcome is too abrupt. Who it is for: viewers who like drama from the independent strand of Indian cinema and narratives of friendship. Who it is not for: the subject is heavy, the ending is harsh, and some passages are incomplete without the historical context.