83 trailer out: Ranveer Singh as Kapil Dev in Kabir Khan directorial leads India to glory
Kabir Khan's film 83, starring Ranveer Singh, Deepika Padukone, Pankaj Tripathi and Jiiva, celebrates the first cricket World Cup win for India
The captain is in the shower in 83. It's June 18, 1983 — India is facing Zimbabwe at Tunbridge Wells — and skipper Kapil Dev (Ranveer Singh) is stalling. No sooner does he come out though, drenched and shirtless; silence falls. It's time for a washing.
The trailer for Kabir Khan's 83 begins on a clever note, giving us the voice, and not the face, of its leading man. If Ranveer, who stars as former Indian cricket captain Kapil Dev, has nailed that voice, then the hair, chin and decisive bowling action must duly follow. Ranveer looks to have a field day so to speak playing the goofy all-rounder, being undeniably a goofy all-rounder himself.
His teammates, too, have been impressively fleshed out: most notably, Jiiva as Krishnamachari Srikkanth, Tahir Raj Bhasin as Sunil Gavaskar and Ammy Virk as Balwinder Sandhu. We meet them as a struggling, ragtag team, far down on the leaderboards to be taken seriously. "Match over, world cup over, captain over," flies the judgement back home.
The trailer of 83 patiently sketches out these rain clouds for over two minutes. The turnaround, which usually comes early in Hindi film trailers, is offered much later, as Kapil and his boys start smashing across windows and breakfast tables. The finale is sumptuously teased: a historic throwdown with West Indies at Lord's, where India picked up its first World Cup by 43 runs.
83 has an extended cameo by Deepika Padukone (in short hair) as Kapil Dev's wife. Sunning his broad forehead, and goading the lads on, is Pankaj Tripathi as PR Man Singh, the manager of the Indian side during the 1983 World Cup.
83 is written by Kabir Khan, Sanjay Puran Singh Chauhan and Vasan Bala. The film is releasing theatrically on December 24.
Kamal Haasan’s Raajkamal Films International and Akkineni Nagarjuna’s Annapurna Studios have joined hands with Reliance Entertainment to present the Tamil and Telugu versions respectively of 83.
Prithviraj’s production and Kichcha Sudeepa’s Shalini Arts are set to present the film in Malayalam and Kannada versions. The film will also be in 3D.
