MovieChat Forums > Breakaway (2011) Discussion > As an Indo-Canuckette...

As an Indo-Canuckette...

posted 13 years ago by wellsangel
4 replies | jump to latest

According to the commentary on this board, I should have hated this film, being Indo-Canadian, female, and only a marginal hockey fan. Actually, I thought it was rather fun.

Sure, it's formulaic and won't win any Oscars. But in the great pantomime tradition, it pairs well-known dramatic cliche (stern papa, earnest young son, forbidden love, and a clownish lout to blame everything on and eventually forgive), with a modern twist. And as in all good Commedia dell'arte, young love and noble intent win the day. It's a fairy-tale, people. Remember? Handsome prince wins Papa's approval and the heart of a foreign princess? Take off your jaded Film Studies spectacles and suspend disbelief for a moment.

Some things I liked on their own merit:

- We often see a protagonist attempt to bridge family heritage and the culture they were born into. But in this film, the non-Indian friends make attempts to meet them halfway. Of course, as is often the case, it starts with food. Later the girls from the Indian community make Melissa welcome, dressing her up for a wedding in traditional Indian garb, bringing her to Gurdwara and teaching her a few handy phrases. White girls often dance in Bollywood videos, so that was no surprise to see - however, the token white girl is not usually the focus, as she was in these (campy, hilarious, badly blue-screened) dream sequences. Her brother seems to have a genuine understanding of his team's conflict between turban and helmet. He later dons a headscarf for Gurdwara, seemingly with no fuss, and is treated as any guest would be. (Except nobody tried to force-feed a second plate of Lungar to anyone.)

- Mama was in no way a stereotypical shrill Punjabi mother. She was calm, clear-thinking, and let her husband and son figure out their own issues, with only a small nudge.

- Great comedic timing with one-liners, from all over the cast. And visual props: The Timbits and Timmy's coffee in the library scene ranked up there with the road-crossing beavers in "Men with Brooms".

- The little brother, who nearly stole the show. Give that kid a TV series!

- Rob Lowe in the final video after the credits. Like many, I've grown up with Rob Lowe since the earliest days of the Brat Pack, and I have no problem with his being a bona fide middle-aged man in real life or on screen, despite that Hollywood keeps insisting he play much younger characters. So to see him attempting to get down with his bad self alongside Ludacris and Camilla Belle in flimsy club-gear was like watching Sam Seaborn's dorky little self-ironic hand-jive to CJ Cregg's "The Jackal". Probably you have to be a West Wingnut to get it, but my friend and I were howling.

- Totally family-friendly, all-ages flick.

On the other hand:

- In this age of Manny Malhotra, Robin Bawa, and other hockey gods of Asian descent, I doubt that a city-level amateur team of white guys would sink to the sort of racist tripe that the Hammerheads were spewing. If they spotted a hot new player, you'd think their only question would be, "Are you signed?" But they made good traditional pantomime villains, name and all.

- Rob Lowe as Camilla Belle's older brother, supporting her through law school? Really? Why on earth did they not just make her his daughter?

- Our young hero declaring that he'd give up his entire hockey dream in order to be with the girl who inspired him to greatness in the first place? I think not!

- Surely all the Hockey Association would care about would be helmet safety, and not a religious issue with turbans. All Jenny Q. Law had to do was prove that a helmet based on the design of the old-style Punjabi military helmets was equally safe, and boom. What need for a student lawyer or a freedom-of-religion case? (That said, I don't think the chain mail would have been approved. Too easy to snag or grab.)

All in all, though, a good popcorn matinee, to kick off a long weekend.

"Stay calm. Be brave. Wait for the signs."

[–] arcangle66 12 years ago

Please don't applaud mediocrity, it will only spread...

The lead got his dad to finance the film, his dad owns Cargo Jet...thats the only reason it got made.

Who would have finance this *beep* It has financial disaster written all over it.

It actually sets back Indians in films quite a bit...we were just getting taken seriously(Naveen Andrews, Danny Pudi, etc)

Shower Shorts: For the man who has nothing to hide, but still wants to

[–] leeaf83 12 years ago

"It actually sets back Indians in films quite a bit...we were just getting taken seriously(Naveen Andrews, Danny Pudi, etc) "

I'm not an indian but I agree, anyone who takes this movie seriously would deduct that the reason why there's not many indian hockey players is that they want to bring along their entire clan and refuse to remove their turbans.

[–] rodriscoll0 10 years ago

Akshay Kumar at least partly financed this film, he's well on record for that.

[–] rodriscoll0 10 years ago

I know I'm a few years late on this thread, but I have to agree, I've liked this movie since it came out but I think there have to be a couple key elements in place to find happiness in this film... you have to have a passing familiarity with bollywood and probably enjoy it to some extent, as much of what's going on here skewes much more to Bollywood than hollywood (for instance, having a song and dance sequence in the film for no reason is a nod). I guess you can say it might even be aping B'wood, but whatever, B'wood apes hollywood all the time, so screw it. The movie is FUN, pure and simple. You're absolutely right when you say you have to watch this movie in a certain light, it has to be watched on it's own with no presuppositions or expectations. It's a cute coming of age tale that fits snugly within that trope, done with nice Indian overtones. I think what I like most about it, it's equally accessible to both cultures. However, when you do this, you necessarily piss off about half the people (since you're sitting right in the middle, you aren't going to appeal to the people on the sides, classic venn diagram model). I, for instance, am a white Sikh. I find this movie very comfortable.

I've seen a lot of people complain this movie somehow denigrates Sikhism, and I can't for the life of me figure out how that is. I think it treats it with much more respect that Christianity is often afforded in many films, and does a good job of explaining certain Sikh requirements very well. I almost feel like Camille is used for this very purpose, there as a stand in for the larger white society so that Raj can explain these things to her (us) without sounding idiotic or preachy. All in all, I've never come across a Sikh person that actually felt offended by this film, although some feel it's kinda childish.

Cast: I did not like the female lead, I felt the actress choice was bad and didn't pair well with Raj. She was dry and uninspired, and I felt they could have done a better job there. Russell catches a lot of crap for this movie, and I have no idea why. This was done back during the height of his popularity... let's face it, stand up comedians don't always do well in films, largely because they are known for their act and you can't do an act in a film very well. Nevertheless, he knew he had to, and he tried (jail scene), and it went better than I thought it would. I thought as purely an actor, he did very well. Rob Lowe was amazing as always, but I expected no less. That speech he gave at the end before the game was as inspired as any I've seen. The opposing team... yeah. maybe a bit over the top. Im an American, but I have to expect Canada is similar to the US in that players are usually more impressed with skill than they are with a player's race these days. THAT being said, I have heard that within hockey, the one black player there is catches a lot of *beep* for being black, although I've heard that's mostly from the fans. Bottom line, I can't imagine a coach allowing his players to be like that these days, it bespeaks of a terrible lack of discipline in the locker room. They act more like a team from the 60's or 70's. Maybe they felt they couldn't make the film work without the racism angle? Not a good choice. But purely as an evil team, it did well. The kid from "are you afraid of the dark" would later go on to play the assassin in Boondock Saints 2, and he did a good job their, so that's awesome. I'm actually very surprised that some of these guys didn't go on to greater things (looking back now 3 years later). Specifically, Inderjeet (the goalie). His timing was good, he's very funny, he would do well in like a romcom or something. Raj, I don't know. Dude chews scenery like he hasn't eaten for days. The good news is, that can be fixed in acting school. His intangibles as an actor are fine (presence, etc). He's going to be in Dr. Cabbie soon with the other Raj from Big Bang theory, we'll see if he's picked anything up in three years. Excellent casting veteran actor Anupam Kher as the father. Sakina Jaffrey as the mother... I don't know. hard to take her seriously as the demure, traditional mother since her nude scenes, but I don't know whether those happened after this movie. On her own merits, she did quite well. I think they did well using her as the "other type of Punjabi mother", since the shrill, selfish one was already used.

This is a safe, vanilla, middle-of-the-road film that should never offend anyone and does very well on it's own when watched for pure entertainment. If I had kids, I'd let them watch this all day long. Solid PG material.

Bonus Content: Peanut butter was invented by a black man. It's possible that was put in their for laughs though.