The fact that it is about women in a sporting arena– heck, that is a sports film– should be a thing to celebrate, and you can see that effort has gone into creating authenticity while training-and-fighting-in-the-ring, but ‘Salaa Khadoos’ is far too literally realized to be a really strong film.
Unlike Madhi’s hero Mohammad Ali, it neither floats nor stings. It drones.

Blame it on the other glorious attempts at sports films that have spoiled us or a lack of soul in this one, there are too many déjà vu moments in the film. It explains itself when in the end, the screen reads, ‘This film is inspired by many true stories’. That’s what we thought.  

Between its many, many confused, underdeveloped, raucous ideas, hides the film Saala Khadoos set out to be. Too bad it never made it to the screen.

Saala Khadoos, for all the storm that it seeks to whip up in the ring and outside it, does not string together enough points to be declared an outright winner.

It has enough heart. It’s the heat that is missing.

Saala Khadoos is extremely formulaic and that’s where it falls flat. Strong performances do not save this predictable film.

…is nowhere in the league of a good sports film, but considering the release it is lined up against this week, it is definitely worth a watch.

The movie deserves praise for sticking to the sports underdog-movie formula and offering us a decent watch. Madhavan as always is delicious on the screen, despite being given the instructions that he has to be Khadoos (crotchety) all the time. Once you get used to the even louder student (marvelously played by newcomer Ritika Singh), the film sort of grows on you. But the predictability of the story makes its 109 minutes feel like three hours.

You feel sorry for the guys punching above their weight here. I’m not sure if Mary Kom (2014) is the reason this wholly humourless film simultaneously moves in so many directions. The core inspiration is obvious. The story does lead up to the world boxing championship.

The direction could be easily blamed for generating repetitiveness, but I beg to differ. I wouldn’t call this bad direction, but just a different treatment. The only issue I had with the film is the insistent soundtracks – although at times it only propels the narration, there are those moments when the bombardment of music breaks your focus on the script. Tame down the abrasive narration a bit too, may be?

Saala Khadoos could have been a decent sports drama, if it had the touch of a master storyteller like Shimit Amin. Sadly, it turns out to be neither as memorable as Chak De India, nor as inspiring as Priyanka Chopra’s Mary Kom. At best, Saala Khadoos is a strictly average affair! Watch it only for the performances of the lead actors!

The drama though limited, is very typical to that of any film which wants a grand finale. This unfortunately, makes the film even more predictable than it already is.

The film may lack a little emotion but it can surely be watched for the sport genre and Madhavan’s knockout performance and on any given day, this film is 100 times better than Mastizaade which even Sunny Leone could not save.

The beauty of Saala Khadoos is that it’s building to a finale that you can see from light years: a grand international match with a badass Russian boxer who, we all know, will be biting the dust by the end of it. You see, the writers have done such a fine job that it doesn’t shock the viewers at all.