Penalty Movie

Football is a celebrated game worldwide, with millions of fans cheering in a chorus when their teams score that much-anticipated goal, staying up all night in front of their television screens when the game goes into extra time. It brings people from vastly different backgrounds and cultures to come together and colour themselves in the pride of their favourite team. However, this love for football and its culture is yet to take its full effect in India, as its cricket counterpart invariably overshadows it. This cloud creates a sad realisation of the fact that football is a neglected sport with no support either from the audiences, or the authorities.

Considering this situation at hand, Penalty, directed by Subham Singh, attempts to bring the sport forward in a positive light to catch the audience’s attention towards the flying colours of football. This movie, starring Kay Kay Menon, Lukram Smil, Manjot Singh, Shashank Arora and Shristi Jain, depicts the story of a talented young footballer in India. Herein, comes the second message the movie tries to sensitise to its audiences, which is racial discrimination towards the north-eastern states in India. The footballer, played by Lukram, hails from north-east and is a brilliant player, playing in a college in Lucknow but falls victim to all sorts of racial discrimination, from slurs to abuse. The movie tells us all about his struggle with handling discrimination with his origins becoming his weapon to fulfil his dream of becoming the best footballer.

The movie brilliantly incorporates the social stigma and prejudice around the north-eastern population in other parts of India into the playing field of football to beautifully capture the issues and present them to its audiences. The viewer can most definitely resonate with the passion and teamwork between the players and can enjoy football, which will most certainly bring its viewers to lead football into a different light. At the same time, the movie will also sensitise the audiences towards the plight of the discriminated minorities, hence bringing the people to understand the difficulties and the oppression faced by them. The movie, releasing on 26th July, will unquestionably entertain and teach some social lessons as well.