Kamal is the one director in Malayalam who moves with the pulse and trends of the youth. With his new flick, Goal another boarding school story after Notebook Kamal has attempted to make a technically savvy, candy floss film with a bunch of new comers.
And with a title Goal Kamal, as you guess, is definitely attempting a story based on football. The director has given special care to present and make you a part of the predictable lines of the simple tale, which shows the fair amount of chances that life gives to the underdogs.
Even though the film is told in a racy manner, does the film work...the scripts by Kalavoor Ravikumar impresses by its basic plots, but the dialogues are a let down.
And if you are in love with the game, the welcome answer may be yes.....
The story of Goal is set against a boarding school in Ooty, the Good Shepherd International School, where the children of the rich alone comes to study. Here our protagonist Sam is a ground-boy at the school stadium and also works as a helper in the canteen. Actually he is an orphan, who was left alone, after his father Isaac (Mukesh), who had been an ace footballer, was long been missing. Issac, who went in search of his wife who had been forcefully taken by people sent by her parents, entrusts the little Sam to the care of a friend named John (Kunchan), with whose daughter Maria (Muktha) he grows up. Maria is now working in the school canteen. This job at school was the one that kept Sam going. The chief football coach of the school, Vijay has a special interest on Sam, who even helps him and his family which include, his wife Rekha (Jenny who is Meera Jasmine's sister) a teacher at the school and his niece Neetu (Mumbai model Aksha), a student at the school .
Victory always eludes the Good Shepherd football team by a reason or another, especially when they are playing against the St. Xavier's Team and Vijay always gets the brunt for it from the other staffs. And one fine day Felix, the star-striker of the school football team, who is a spoilt brat and a drug addict and two of his friends are caught red-handed using drugs. The Principal Dr. Immanuel George is forced to take action and the three gets dismissed.
Felix then joins St. Xavier's and is determined to humble Vijay in every way possible. Vijay gives his team the necessary inspiration but the team members join hands with Felix to see that their own team is beaten. In the meantime Sam's father turns up, but he is in a totally distracted state not able to identify anyone. In order to help his father regain his memory, Sam takes the ball and goes to the school ground at night. Neethu and her friends, happens to see this and shoots Sam's performance on video. Vijay stunned on seeing Sam's performance takes Sam under his tutelage and along with the help of Neethu and other students gets him enrolled in the school. As Sam is able to wear the jersey of the school and represent them, but other students in the team do not co-operate with him. At the same time Neethu feels offended when he does not respond to her, creating more problems for him. The plot follows how Vijay and Sam take strides to bring back the honor of themselves and the school.
The film has a bit of romantic angle which doesn't stretch too much, and then we have misunderstandings galore and attempts of comedy in the form of Salim Kumar, a non-teaching staff who is in love with the librarian, who is a nun.
However, Goal has its moments with worth watching performances of the newcomers. Renjith Menon impresses you and stands out with his natural act and vibrant smiles, while Mukta George steals your heart with another superb performance, and Aksha looks beautiful all through even though strained in some emotional sequences.
