Gold

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Akshay Kumar and Mouni Roy’s Bollywood movie Gold, continues to impress the audience. After earning a good box office numbers in the first week, the film witnessed a decline in Week 2, nonetheless, fans are impressed with the powerful performances and are showering their love on Gold. Even after Rajkummar Rao and Shraddha Kapoor’s film Stree giving tough competition when it comes to numbers, Gold has earned Rs. 107.37 crores till date. 

Bollywood critic and Trade analyst Taran Adarsh took to his social media to share the box office numbers of Akshay Kumar’s film Gold and wrote, “#Gold [Week 3] Fri 45 lakhs, Sat 82 lakhs, Sun 1.20 cr, Mon 55 lakhs, Tue 35 lakhs. Total: ₹ 107.37 cr. India biz. #Gold biz at a glance...Week 1: ₹ 89.30 cr [prolonged Week 1 - 9 days; released on Wed]…….Week 2: ₹ 14.70 cr…….Week 3: ₹ 3.37 cr [till Tue]….Total: ₹ 107.37 cr…..India biz…..HIT.”

The Reema Kagti-directorial Gold became Akshay’s highest opening film ever, beating Singh Is Bling which was his highest opening film till now.  This historical sports drama by Reema Kagti with fictional characters is based on 1948 Olympics when India won its first gold medal as an Independent nation. This patriotic saga is connected by several dots of the history like World War, India’s freedom struggle and partition. The first half of Gold is where characters come into the light and this goes on smoothly. Kagti talks about Tapan going deep into alcoholism and partition that ripped India. Not all the scenes and instances are intriguing. Gold is beautiful in bits and parts, especially the last 30 minutes, as it keeps you glued to the screen.

It’s not as if Akshay isn’t fully there. He immerses himself in his role, playing the sad sack when things go awry, fooling his wife for some monetary handouts, falling about drunkenly after his alcoholic bouts, always redeeming himself by keeping his love of the sport squarely in the centre. But all this takes up much too much screen time, and takes crucial focus away from the game and the players.

So do a couple of superfluous songs-and-dances, which slacken the pace. A little less Akshay, and minus the songs, Gold would have been tauter, better.

What makes the film worth a watch, despite these problems, are the flashes of well-done humour, the skirmishes between the players, and the rousing finale. You know you are being played, but you don’t expect anything else, because it’s that kind of film : when the `tiranga’ went up, I teared up.