Take a chance on Shahid!

At one point in this heartwarming journey into the life and climbs of a Bollywood struggler, one of the kids in the school where our struggler-hero teaches dancing, wonders how their teacher-ji manages to wear such trendy tee-shirts when he lives in a car and has no money for food.
“Arrey, those are duplicates of branded teeshirts, you can get them at Rs 150 on the pavement,” retorts a know-all kid.That one fleeting moment sums up what Chance Pe Dance strives to squeeze into two-hour of fluid playing-time. The struggle for stardom is done on that glamorized level of self-actualization where the audience accepts the liberties with authenticity for the pleasure of watching good-looking people look presentable in situations where they would otherwise appear unbecomimg.
From the credit titles where we see our struggler-hero prepare for another day of selling himself to an unthinking entertainment industry, a slightly seamless splendour lurks at the heart of this film about a Dilliwallah’s struggle to become a star in Big Bad Bollywood. Cliched theme? Yup. But sometimes some of the most endearing truths of life emerge from situations that work in a direction opposite to the unique. The fact that Shahid plays the struggler helps, really helps. Here’s an enormously watchable actor who can take away the ‘acting’ from a character and just make you look at what is being said and done on screen without the baggage of the actor’s personal life being carried forward.
Shahid’s Samir is a portrait of a struggler in all its shades. Samir has defiantly left for Bollywood while his dad (Parikshit Sahni, endearing) is left wondering why his son needs to be a film hero in the thirst place (Bollywood). Shahid goes through the predictable grind, but with such extraordinary sincerity and involvement, you suddenly realize the one truth about life’s vagaries. Every struggle no matter how similar on the surface, is different underneath.
Shahid brings out all the shades, nuances and layers in the struggler’s inner life without bending the rules of commercial hero-giri. This is a far better performance than it outwardly seems. Whether romancing the funny girl next-door (okay, a few blocks away), manifesting the disappointments of a struggler who’s getting emotionally worn-out waiting for the big moment, or interacting with the kids in school (the director is almost as good with these angels from hell as Shekhar Kapoor in Mr India)...Shahid just goes with the flow with a fluidity that goes beyond the dance-floor.
Oh, about Shahid’s dancing, is there a better dancer in the film industry today? The slim but confident plot moves on a smooth surface. This is a rom-com with a pleasing pungent flavour of Mumbai’s sorrowful underbelly hidden but palpable beneath the smooth surface. While Shahid struggles for stardom the narrative glides along at its own even pace seeking out the wannabe star’s life as homeless road-dweller who sleeps in his car, and smirks at life’s cruelties.
There are very few characters in the plot. Satish Shah, Mohnish Behl and Vikas Bhalla come and go like images seen from a moving train. Director Ken Ghosh keeps the narrative free of complexities beyond the struggler’s immediate preoccupations. And that suits the film’s moderate temperature just fine. Some moments, especially with the kids, exude the warmth of a ray of sunshine peeping through a partially open door. Watch the sequence where the kids share their lunch with their famished teacher. Awwwww!
Though the choreography is uneven and the climactic dance a bit of a disappointment, Shahid comfortably keeps us watching the predictable but perky progression of this penniless pilgrim from the backseat of a car to the red-carpet.
While giving groovy guru-gyan to his students, dance teacher Shahid mentions Michael Jackson, Govinda, Prabhu Deva, Hrithik Roshan and Shiamak Davar among the best dancers. We can easily add Shahid’s name to the list.
Check out Shahid Kapoor’s homepage