The movie 83 was released in December of last year, and just recently reached Netflix. Following its publication, the 1983 Cricket World Cup has been brought back into the public’s view. This tournament was crucial to the pride of India, and can even be listed as a “historic” event. The big question is: did the movie do it justice?

But first, why was the world cup so important?

The 1983 World Cup 

There were 4 primary teams in this world cup, consisting of the West Indies, India, Australia, and Zimbabwe. Overall, The West Indies had the most points total from the tournament, but India took the winning title in the finals. In this case, however, the statistics matter much less than the final outcome. Not only was this the first World Cup that India had ever won, but it was also the first time India had ever gotten so far in a World Cup. Given that cricket is essentially a part of India, this was groundbreaking. The win was an extreme source of pride to Indians worldwide, and united the country. As banal as this sounds, the event was well-timed for India, especially in its time of violent turmoil.

’83: The Movie

Overview

The movie as a whole follows the Indian cricket team as they venture through the World Cup together. It can be considered as a drama, as there are many dramatized aspects of the movie such as romance that may not have happened in the actual events.

Characters

The main character is Kapil Dev, the Indian team captain. Other characters in the movie include Mohinder Amarnath, Roger Binny, Kirti Azad, Sunil Gavaskar, Balwinder Sandhu, Madan Lal, Sandeep Patil, Syed Kirmani, Yashpal Sharma, Ravi Shastri, and more.

Languages

The movie is available in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam audios. It also covers subtitles in multiple other languages, one of them being English.

Statistics

83 aired on a little less than 10,000 screens subsequent to its release. Given the pandemic, its debut was also rather successful.

Review 

• Acting

Ranveer Singh plays Kapil Dev, which he suited nicely as an actor. Since he has acting experience, he was able to pull off this influential role in a composed manner. Because the rest of the roles were minor in this movie specifically, the remaining number of the “acting” portion was trivial. They didn’t make as much of an impact since the rest of the actors played smaller roles. While this is fine in the case of 83, the event that it covers is so important that it would have been more sufficient if each actor got an equally important role.

• Plot

With the extra inclusions and dramatizations, the movie was still equally compelling. The movie succeeded in illustrating the extreme noteworthiness of the World Cup win.

• Dialogue

The dialogue actually seemed rather forced. This may have been because of the fast progressing plot, as it often seemed rushed. Luckily, the dialogue was more natural than stoic in this movie.

• Cinematography

The scenery incorporated many aspects of India, which made the movie seem more real.

All in all, this movie is solid and deserves commendation.