Cricket is a game which is more than a religion in our country as it unites people irrespective of their caste, creed, religion and sex. Ley Chakka which is somewhat of a modern Lagaan shows us how a boy from South Kolkata comes to North Kolkata and trains a team of losers to be winners.Abir arrives in North Kolkata with his family and hates the place like his mother though his father loves it. Gradually he befriends the local guys and also Rani, the daughter with whom he later on falls in love. He trains a bunch of losers into a match winning team when he challenges the local politician to take his team on in a cricket match to save the old mansion being converted into a shopping mall. The condition was that if the politician’s team loses, he should never be seen again in that locality. The politician’s team does lose to the Eleven Bullets in a predictable ending. The film starts off on a completely different note as one thought that the film would be about the rivalry between the Ghotis and the Bangals, two groups of people whose likes and dislikes as way of life is totally different and always at loggerheads. Yet the film completely deviates from it’s original storyline and goes on to portray Abir’s upmanship against the goons for the rest of the film. People from North Kolkata might not take too kindly in the manner in which they have been portrayed and where a guy from South Kolkata has to come and teach them how to play cricket. No special mention is required about Dev though Payel has done a good job. Music by Indradeep Dasgupta is okay and Sri Lanka has been shown for the first time in Bengali films. Special mention must be made of Debjani as Ratna, Rani’s elder sister a sex starved woman whose role is a little tragic in the entire film yet she comes up with an excellent performance.Dev repeats his hit dialogue of Challenge in this film and the catch-When Abir is chasing the goons down the alley, a group of kids give him a cricket bat and ask him to bash up the goons with the bat.Abir hits one goon at a time and we hear the kids chanting Ley Chakka from time to time!
