Sitaare Zameen Par Cast/Actors: Aamir Khan, Genelia Deshmukh, Dolly Ahluwalia, Brijendra Kala, Nikhat Khan, Aroush Datta, Gopi Krishnan Varma, Vedant Sharmaa, Naman Misra, Rishi Shahani, Rishabh Jain, Ashish Pendse, Samvit Desai, Simran Mangeshkar, Aayush Bhansali, Gurpal Singh & others
Sitaare Zameen Par Movie Director: R.S. Prasanna
Sitaare Zameen Par Movie Production House: Aamir Khan Productions
Sitaare Zameen Par Movie Release Date: 20th June, 2025
Sitaare Zameen Par Movie Available On: Theatrical Release (No OTT Release)
Sitaare Zameen Par Released/Available In Languages: Hindi
Sitaare Zameen Par Movie Runtime: 2h 38m
Sitaare Zameen Par Movie Critic Review:
Sometimes, what a story says is more important than how flawlessly it is narrated.
Director RS Prasanna and writer Divy Nidhi Sharma’s Indianisation of the Spanish film Champions (2007) exemplifies the significance of what a film ultimately delivers.
Swag and insolence combine to have assistant basketball coach Gulshan Arora (Aamir Khan) suspended while reckless, drunken driving has him hauled up before a judge. He gets three months of community service as punishment, as basketball coach to a team of intellectually challenged people. “And ready them for a national championship,” adds Kartar Singh (Gurpal Singh), the man in charge of the association where Gulshan has to report as coach.
His initial dismissal of the special people as ‘pagal’ which has the judge raising his fine every time he utters the word, sets the tone for comedy that tickles the funny bone and unmissable messages that reach the heart.
Aamir Khan has ventured into the sports arena in the past with Lagaan (2001) and Dangal (2016). But this time it’s not the game itself, it is life lessons that are the focus, the coach ending up learning more than he could ever teach.
What the dyslexic and those with Downs Syndrome may lack in IQ is balanced out with weighty amounts of EQ where victory, celebration and happiness are spelt differently by Gulshan’s Team Sitaare.
The good part is that there’s much room for laughter, not laughing at ‘them’ but with them and some more.
But, in labouring to tick off a lengthy must-do list, the screenplay has its ups and downs.
The hero has a daddy problem. Solved unconventionally and with humour.
Hero and wife Suneeta (Genelia Deshmukh) have marital issues. His heart-changing experience with Team Sitaare provides an organic answer. But throwing Gulshan and Suneeta together for the final game is an example of a forced situation. Why does Suneeta have to put her work aside to drive a bus when Kartar is soon at the wheel?
One of the players has hydrophobia and never bathes. Coach, team and a rat conspire to find the right cure. Works.
Hero has elevator phobia. The goofy, cartoonish solution is another piece of writing that stumbles. But the scenes after the phobia is vanquished bring some surprise chuckles.
Two minuses: the length of the film makes the narration dip. The elaborate explanations by Kartar Singh on how sabka normal alag hai get weary with lines tailored for tears. Trying way too hard to balance comic moments with emotional weight, the humour is sometimes as nauseating as puking in a bus or too many kicks in the groin. While it is amusing to have Aamir referred to as ‘tingu’, there is an overdose of references to his height.
The second disappointment is Shankar-Ehsan-Loy’s music as background songs for Gulshan and wife’s Suneeta separation or when training the team, don’t linger. There’s a ‘Good for nothing’ track that has the words ‘Papa kehte hai…’ like a throwback to good old QSQT times.
For a film that makes such a relevant point on special people and on mothers, it’s disappointingly regressive when Suneeta ticks off Gulshan that he won’t understand how it’s impossible for a woman to be an actress after marriage. Never heard of Sharmila Tagore, Moushumi Chatterjee and generations thereafter?
But there are also sequences and dialogues that amuse with freshness. Examples: Kartar’s ‘Normal mein dard hai’, the prostitute and businesswoman punch and the Dolly Ahluwalia-Brijendra Kala track.
While the entire cast plays its part well, it is an Aamir Khan show all the way.
Sitaare Zameen Par Watch Or Not?: Ultimately, what matters is what you take home. And this look at special people is worth a watch.
Sitaare Zameen Par Review Score Rating: 3 out of 5 (i.e. 3/5)
Sitaare Zameen Par Official Trailer:
Credits: Aamir Khan Talkies
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. Widening the world to a basketball team of neurodivergent people, the actor and his director RS Prasanna make a tonal about-turn with a humorous narration. Do they pull it off with poignancy? Our review gives you the full picture.){kind=link}