During the past few years, in our country we have witnessed many international level sportspersons emerging from small villages. Best examples are Umesh Yadav Cricket, Deepika Kumari( Archery), Vijay Kumar ( Shooting), Sushil Kumar ( Wrestling), Mary Kom( Boxing) and the latest sensation in athletics –is 18 year old Hima Das. If none had spotted their talent and brought them into light, they would not have achieved what they have done till now.

Latest Marathi film ‘Re Raya‘ which is set on the backdrop of sports, revolves around one such national and international level Athlete Aadesh Bhosale( Bhushan Pradhan) . Aadesh, in spite of being the top athlete in the state of Maharashtra and India, is ignored for the prestigious Shiv Chhatrapati award by the state administrators and instead of him an inferior athlete is chosen for this award. Dejected by this favoritism, Aadesh leaves for his remote village at a district place . During his short stay there, he comes across three youngsters from poor families Rahul ( Vivek Chabukswar) , Aakash( Sudarshan Patil) & Vasu ( Hansraj Jagtap) who are really good in sprinting, high jump and archery respectively.

After taking permission from their parents and asking his guardian to take care of their families, Aadesh brings them to city to offer them training in their respective sports. Since he does not know much about archery, he requests another coach Gavde Sir( Abhijit Chavan) to train Vasu. After some struggle and rigorous training the three youngsters achieve what their mentor Aadesh had expected from them. Though this is an inspiring tale , the turn of sequences in post interval stage become predictable. Besides these three sports, the audience do not get glimpse of any other sports, thus it gives a feeling that National games are played only for these three games.

However, the director has cleverly highlighted the Politics in sports selection, right from the grass root level to the selection of sportspersons to represent state team. He has also thrown light on how the people who have not played a particular sport are made selectors. The non availability of facilities like proper food and toilets especially for girls is clearly shown through two scenes. This is a clear expose of our state associations representing different games and the host state. And therefore, to some extent he has succeeded in presenting what he wanted to convey to real sports lovers.

The best thing about this film is the selection of the artistes to play all the important characters. Bhushan Pradhan looks a perfect athlete and has displayed his emotions well. The three young artistes Vivek Chabukswar , Sudarshan Patil & Hansraj Jagtap have fulfilled the expectations from them with hard work displayed clearly through their body language, as they were more involved in action sequences. Sanskruti Balgude has been used as a show piece in this sports oriented film. Her role has not been defined properly. But, as a strong supporter of her boyfriend who is totally committed to coaching, she does well in all those few scenes to her share. In the supporting roles of School Sports teacher and Archery Coach, Uday Tikekar and Abhijit Chavan are impressive. Playing the role of little Aadesh, child star Malhar Dandge is good and so are Prakash Dhotre and Nayan Jadhav in the respective roles of Aadesh’s father and close friend .

Music by Mangesh Dhakde is just fine but Pratap Nair has captured all those action moments through his camera superbly. Story idea of Kiran Berad is inspiring, but he should have paid more attention on expanding the screenplay extra skillfully and supporting it with dialogues more capturing, with his limited content. However, the intention of film maker is good and he sends across a good message to the society and especially to all those sports lovers.

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