Hansal Mehta and Rajkummar Rao constitute one of Hindi cinema's most potent artistic collaborations. Their films - Shahid, for which Rajkummar won a National Award, City Lights, Aligarh, Omerta - are blistering, probing portraits of the state of our world. In Chhalaang, Hansal and Rajkummar attempt something more mainstream. They tell the uplifting story of a PT teacher in small-town Haryana, who finds his purpose in life through coaching the weakest kids in the school into a winning team.

The story is about THE man in Montu (Rajkummar Rao) falling in love with a woman in Neelu (Nushrratt Bharuccha). Both teach for the same school with Neelu being the Computer teacher & Montu being a useless Physical Training Instructor (PTI). Using the Government's scheme of making sports a compulsory subject, the school decides to hire a more professional PTI.

Hansal Meha's Chhalaang is about a physical training teacher - the PT Master of many childhoods who would blow on his whistle and make students fling their arms and legs about purportedly in an endeavour to keep them fit. The Amazon original movie is a throwback in more ways than one. Chhalaang evokes such 1970s comedies as Chhoti Si Baat and Katha.

Sports-based Hindi films have always been more about adrenaline rush and underdogs than being neutral in perspective and letting the best person win. They have always been about hope even if the protagonists go through personal conflicts. Shah Rukh Khan's Chak De and Aamir Khan's Dangal features unlikely winners who come from behind to snatch their share of glory. In between, the directors throw in some punches and gags to ease the tension off before building it to the highest during climax.

Chhalaang is hilarious, yet the inspirational journey of Montu, a PT Master from a semi government-funded school for whom teaching PT is just a job. When circumstances put everything he cares for at stake, including Neelu who he loves, Montu is forced to do what he's never done - TEACH. Through his journey, the film humorously addresses the value of Sports Education in the school curriculum.

Hansal Mehta and Rajkummar Rao have produced some of their most dramatic and bold work (Shahid, Citylights, Aligarh, Omerta) in collaboration. Compared to those, Chhalaang provides for a lightsome change of pace. In this formulaic underdog tale, a doltish physical education teacher of a small town school in Haryana challenges his more qualified rival and demotion causer to a competition and prove his worth in everyone's eyes.

Mahendra Singh Hooda (Rajkummar Rao), is a happy-go-lucky PT teacher inadvertently attracted to a computer teacher Neelima Mehra (Nushrratt Bharuccha). He faces a competition from new PT teacher Mr. Singh (Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub), who is serious about his job. Caught in an 'identity' crisis Mahendra Singh Hooda aka Montu decides to get some respect and develop a sense of duty and responsibility towards his profession and more.

Over the years, Bollywood and regional cinema have given us enough films in the sports-drama genre that it is near impossible to point at Chhalaang's script and classify any part of it as unique. Except, there is something singular about this film and it is the man at the helm of affairs - Hansal Mehta. Ably supported by frequent collaborator Rajkummar Rao, the gifted actor-director duo manage to convert an otherwise pedestrian storyline into watchable material rather effortlessly.

For a while now, the Hansal Mehta-Rajkummar Rao 'jodi' has been working smoothly to deliver a series of films which combine meaning with mainstream. Chhalaang, their new collaboration, takes us to small-town Haryana, where a bunch of characters learn to negotiate small-bumps-on-the-road while imbibing big life lessons, and taking the leap of faith.

Mahinder Singh aka Montu (Rajkummar Rao) is a slacker. From waking up long after the sun is up to loitering around with his much older bum-chum Masterji (Saurabh Shukla), Montu has little purpose in life. He is super complacent at his job of a PT teacher in his own school, which he landed only because his father (Satish Kaushik) recommended him to the principal (Ila Arun).

A drifter finds a purpose in life and turns over a new leaf in Chhalaang, an Amazon original film helmed by Hansal Mehta. Sadly, it is a piece of cinema that does not bear the stamp of the director of Shahid and Aligarh. It has nothing fresh to offer. It is a leap that is all over the place.

Just when you thought 2020 couldn't pull the rug from under your feet one more time, it delivered a Luv Ranjan film that is actually quite enjoyable. To be fair though, it took the finest actor-director pair in contemporary Hindi cinema to achieve this near-impossible feat.