Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal. What a dumb name for a movie about British football! This was the foremost thought on my mind with regards to this film, which I shall simply refer to as ‘Goal’ for the remainder of the review.

Goal is a Bollywood film about football. Based in Britain, it places particular emphasis on racial discrimination against Asians in competitive football, as well as attempting to portray the ghetto-like parallel society of many Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis living here.

Being made by Indians living in India, I thought that Goal would fail miserably in its attempt to portray the trials and tribulations as well as the emerging culture and lifestyle of Asians living in Britain, in the same way that it would be unlikely for a bunch of Indians born here (in Britain) to be able to make a truly realistic film about India.

In short, I expected Goal to be a film that would make me cringe with embarrassment as it tried to recreate ‘British Asian’ culture and lifestyle, as well show what’s cool and what’s not.

And I wasn’t wrong! The film was so culturally (and even geographically) confused that I don’t know where to start. When a film is made about a community of people to which you belong, it is difficult not to notice the utter lack of realism.

But films are meant to be entertaining, and if they manage to entertain, one can forgive a lack of realism and attention to detail. Thankfully, on the entertainment front Goal does a lot better. Despite some mistimed and crap songs, the story line does pack some punch, with a blend of humour and gritty sporting spirit.

The film is based in Southall, where a down and out football team called Southall United, that only has Asian players, is fighting for its survival against council plans to build a shopping and entertainment complex on its grounds. Southall United needs to raise £3 million to renew its lease of the grounds, but is totally broke. Furthermore, it hasn’t won a game in living memory, and is the running joke of the football scene. Shaan (Arshad Warsi), the captain of the team, is determined to end his side’s endless losing streak. With the help of an initially unwilling Coach, Tony Singh (Boman Irani), they take up the challenge to lead the team into the upcoming “Combined Counties Football League”, which has a winners prize of (surprise surprise) £3 million.

With such a crap reputation, and no money, there is not exactly a queue of doctors lining up to be the team physician. Therefore the role is filled by the only willing candidate, the captain’s sister Rumana (Bipasha Basu), who has just qualified as a medic. Although she has a lot of screen time and dialogue, her character amounts to nothing more than eye candy – with no meaningful contribution to the film except snapping at her boyfriend Sunny (John Abraham) when he ditched Southall United for a tantalizing job offer playing for Millwall United. John Abraham on the other hand plays a really great role. He is not a very likeable character, but is the best footballer out of the pack. He dreams of being a pro, and initially did not want to play for a team with as bad a reputation as Southall United (who he likens to a bunch of curry shop owners). But he failed to make the selection for his own team, apparently due solely to the colour of his skin He had no choice left but to play for Southall, which incidentally leads to bigger things for him. The film also focuses on the strained relationship between him and his father, which is a nice sub-plot to the main story.

In the end, films like this only ever have happy endings. It was apparent from the start that eventually Southall United would beat the odds and win. This takes away from any real sense of suspense to the film. But hey, at least the journey towards victory is entertaining.

On a final note, the brutal way that Goal tackles the subject of racism in Britain may seem a bit shocking, unrealistic and one-sided to a person who hasn’t experienced it. But stuff like this does continue to happen. Maybe less than say 15-20 years ago in the skinhead era, but its wise for us to know that for many of us, our positions in British society are still not as secure as we may like to believe.