Burn The Tape: Breakaway...From Watching Breakaway
Rob Lowe returns! No one knows why!
Hello everyone, and welcome to this week’s edition of Burn The Tape: a recurring segment where most of us punish ourselves for your entertainment.
This week, I have regrettably watched Breakaway, a film so bad that you can find the entirety of it on YouTube because presumably the producers of this film are so thrilled anyone would watch it, piracy laws be damned. To really set the tone, I read a few fun facts about Breakaway on Wikipedia, like the fact that it was released in both English and Punjabi in the hopes that anyone would watch it. They did not, leading to the film to be dubbed in Hindi and renamed The Speedy Singhs in an attempt to fool India into watching it.
Box Office India is quoted as declaring the movie a “disaster” so you can imagine how well that went.
The film opens to a daydream of our lead character Rajveer Singh who wins a playoff overtime series for the Toronto Maple Leafs against the Detroit Red Wings. The entire world is captivated by this series in a way that is likely going to be the biggest suspension of disbelief in the whole film. A chef in what is presumably India decides he cannot tear his eyes off the game, and just haphazardly throws water on a kitchen fire to put it out. You have to hope that it wasn’t a grease fire, or else Singh’s fantasies include small business owners destroying their livelihood and also putting their lives at risk, just to watch the Leafs beat the Red Wings.
The daydream then begins to turn into some kind of wet dream before Raj is woken up, sleeping in the back of a shipping truck by his father Darvesh. They both technically work for Raj’s uncle Sammy’s shipping company, and Darvesh is disappointed with his son for having hockey-fuelled wet dreams on family company time.
Instead, Raj should be more concerned with becoming head of this shipping company, and also concerned with finding himself a nice wife. Neither of these things are hockey, so this has some real family tension undertones. Raj’s cousin is getting married. It’s been five minutes and this entire movie plot has been spelled out before my very eyes.
We cut to Raj and what will presumably be the rest of the Speedy Singhs playing shinny hockey, where Raj ignores everyone asking for a pass and instead pulls off that ludicrous (hint: this is foreshadowing) deke from NHL 07 where you flip the puck over the net from behind and then skate around and hit it in like it’s baseball. This makes everyone else mad at him, but catches the attention of the local arena coach, in the way that arenas just have depressed coaches just lingering about waiting to really get the chance to just coach some damn hockey.
Also the hockey coach is Rob Lowe.
Yeah, like most arena lifers.
While the Speedy Singhs are just hanging around being buds on the ice, the Hammerheads - yes, the winners of the last four Hyundai Cups - demanding Raj + pals give it up early because they’re white and racism works well for them. It’s not subtly implied, the biggest guy on the Hammerheads just skates by and is incredibly racist and dumb. Rob Lowe goes to the Hammerhead coach and just asks him to make sure there’s no blood on the ice this time, because Rob Lowe is not what we’d call an active bystander and thus part of the problem.
They fight.
The Hammerhead’s coach breaks it up just in time, and then Raj asks to play with them because playing hockey with racists sure beats truckin’. The coach says no, but the team convinces him to give Raj a pity shot, calling Raj a girl. The whole team sucks, but Raj is cut anyway because one scrimmage doesn’t solve racism. Rob Lowe though, he watches on and he likes what he sees. Also, Rob Lowe’s younger sister Melissa shows up, and there’s some flirtation. After the practice, Raj tries to woo her, and she’s like “The Canadian Charter of Human Rights clearly lays out that this is racism.” She’s in law school. Raj tries to play it cool by defending that as hockey culture. “No, they were saying rag it, a very popular hockey term,” he probably said.
Meanwhile, back at home, tensions are flaring up at the Singh household. Darvesh is mad that Raj is all play, no work. Raj is upset that Darvesh doesn’t value hockey as much as cricket. They both make equally compelling points. Darvesh casually drops that uncle Sammy’s trucking business is worth $8 million, and honestly he raises a good point. Raj is hoping to be a part of what is essentially a step up from beer league. Buddy, let’s get some priorities. Anyway, the fight gets so intense that Darvesh bans Raj from playing hockey, a punishment I’m sure Raj will respect.
Oh wait, no he doesn’t, because he tries to get his pals to compete in the Hyundai Cup. They laugh at him, telling him flat out they all suck at hockey and shouldn’t compete, and honestly his buddies seem like a lot of fun. I wish this movie followed them. They just crack jokes and are shitty at hockey. I do that.
Instead, Rob Lowe sees Raj’s feeble attempts at getting a team together, and realizes this is his time to shine. Rob Lowe asks them what their names are, and they all have the last name Singh. There isn’t a single player on this team that isn’t named Singh? This makes it incredible easy to address them all at once. He decides to coach them.
Cue the montage of everyone being terrible at hockey (except Raj), but damn if there isn’t something there if you look at the glimmer in Rob Lowe’s eye.
We cut to Raj’s cousin (the one who is getting married) and her fiancee is Russell Peters? Unclear yet how much of a factor he’ll be in this movie, or if he just attached his name to it to sell tickets. In his first scene, Raj nearly murders Russell Peters by driving a truck over him. Excited to see where this one goes.
Back at the rink, training is going well, until Raj probably gets a concussion by getting slammed into the boards. Melissa, on top of being a law student, is also certified in first aid, so just rushes on to the ice to tend to him. Raj sees her, and in his concussion-rattled brain, imagines a weird belly/ice dancing mating thing outside the Taj Mahal except the pool is a sheet of ice. It’s as weird as it sounds.
This goes on for like four minutes.
Raj somehow scores a date out of this? And explains to Melissa that as a child he experienced a lot of racism at the hand of good Canadian boys, so he tried to self-assimilate as a defence mechanism and that’s where the wedge between Raj and his father comes in. Everyone is very chill with the racism.
There’s a quick scene where Raj goes to uncle Sammy to ask him to sponsor his hockey team (somehow keeping this a secret from Darvesh??) and Russell Peters is also in the room for some reason. They give Raj the gears over this, but Raj promises to name the team after the trucking company - The Speedy Singhs! Sheesh. Russell Peters calls Raj a puck bunny, and I don’t think that term means exactly what he thinks it means.
Rob Lowe wants to test how the Speedy Singhs are progressing, so ‘double books’ the one available rink in Toronto with the Hammerheads. They play a scrimmage, and it goes like you’d imagine, except for the attempted murder. There’s a lot of attempted murder in this movie. Anyway, none of the Speedy Singhs wear a helmet except Raj. They wear turbans instead. This doesn’t help when one of the Hammerheads two-hand chops one of the Singhs in the head with his stick. It looked more gruesome than when Chris Simon came in swinging. No one cares.
The lesson learned here is actually that the Speedy Singhs need some goons, so they go and find the biggest Indian guys in Toronto. #grit
Meanwhile, back at the trucking company, Raj is scheduled to have his first trucking shift the same night as Game 1 of the Hyundai Cup. Uncle Sammy - noted cool guy - takes Raj off the schedule secretly, letting him go play hockey. Darvesh on the other hand is so proud of his son for finally getting his life together and driving truck to New York. He goes to give his son a good luck charm for the drive, but then finds out Raj is playing hockey instead. He saves this for later, like any guilt-obsessed father.
The Speedy Singhs lose Game 1 because Rob Lowe chose to send a message by playing the goons, leading to a power play goal for the opposing team that won them the game. He did it to gain the team respect. Raj is pissed, because he thinks fighting is bad, and that being good and winning hockey games gets you respect. Damn, watch the game nerd.
Melissa shows up to tell Raj to respect Rob Lowe, because he was drafted second in the NHL (????) years ago, and got tossed out of the league after four games because he had a shitty attitude. Yeah, okay.
Darvesh and Raj eventually have it out over Raj being “a lying liar” and continuing to play hockey but are interrupted because Raj’s younger brother is missing. I hadn’t brought up his brother so far because I thought he would be inconsequential. That’s on me.
Raj goes home and finds his little brother (a little premature to call him missing but whatever) and finds that he’s now being bullied by good Canadian boys and is about to cut his hair off, the same act of defiance that Raj did when he was bullied. Raj sees his mistake over not standing up to racism, and instead inspires his brother to be better than him. Meanwhile, Joe Schmuck over in Mississauga is probably Googling new ways to bully this kid, and no one will address it.
There wasn’t enough drama, so the Hyundai Cup organizers say that if they’re gonna play full-contact hockey, the Speedy Singhs need to wear helmets and not turbans for the rest of the tournament. As someone who also used to have religious headgear policed during sport, I relate to this scene, but this is mostly played for cheap suspense, so I’m not gonna touch it.
Next is the classic montage of “rest of the tournament” showing the Speedy Singhs winning a bunch of games now, moving up the leaderboard, and living their lives successfully. It’s a classic! Raj and Melissa flirt during it. Darvesh is mad at Raj. Boys become men.
Next up is a bunch of stuff that is Russell Peters-related drama, and honestly I’d love to skip over. Both he and his fiancee are having their stag/stagette parties at the same club, so Russell Peters can spy on her. It’s honestly not worth talking about, except that Raj just casually walks through the club and bumps into Drake. And just walks up to him and asks to do a surprise for the fiancee.
Drake is disappointed that she’s over eighteen, but decides to help Raj out. He takes over the club and drops a few verses for her. A lot happens, and a fight breaks out? Drake is scuttled outta there by some kind of secret service, and Russell Peters gets bottled. Everyone ends up in the drunk tank.
Russell Peters and Raj bond in the drunk tank, realizing there was no reason for them to be so antagonistic to each other. Turns out that one of the Speedy Singhs is also a cop (ACAB) so gets them out.
Darvesh is furious that Raj was in jail, so kicks him out. Raj is tired of being judged both in the house and outside the house (it should land as a dramatic beat, but the movie is so bad it’s just a relief we finally got here) so Raj leaves. He doesn’t need a home. He has hockey.
Or does he? Rob Lowe is also furious about the club/jail kerfuffle, mostly cause Melissa got involved in it. He strips Raj of his captaincy, and so Raj quits the team. No one likes Raj, but honestly it’s not hard to see why. Raj does an incredibly pouty tour of Toronto as well as a dramatic skate in an unlit hockey arena.
You can’t outskate your feelings, Raj. You may be able to outskate all the fog in this arena though.
He then goes to make amends with Rob Lowe and Melissa. Rob Lowe doesn’t care, the team somehow won without Raj, they don’t need his bullshit. They’re in the finals, except it doesn’t matter because now the Hyundai Cup is really cracking down on their anti-turban policy. It’s hard to care given how cartoonishly violent stuff has been so far with no reaction, but this certainly seems like it’ll open the door for Raj somehow. It’s the finals, damn it.
Raj goes and finds a solution in the form of religious battle helmets that Sikh ancestors wore centuries ago. They are golden and have chain mail, so they have to pass Hyundai Cup standards. Raj has them custom-made, and uses them as an apology to the team. Melissa uses her law-student knowledge to threaten the Hyundai Cup with a lawsuit if they continue to be racist. Everyone accepts, welcomes him back, and it’s off to the finals.
Actually, no, wait. It’s the wedding between Russell Peters and Raj’s cousin. It’s a real family affair. Darvesh and Raj make up. The wedding looks incredibly fun, and Raj wants to leave early because of the Finals. This dude is losing his mind for a Spengler Cup knock off for the Greater Toronto Area. What’s worse, Russell Peters decides to move the reception to the game? Everyone is now very invested in this bush league final and not an incredible wedding. Except Darvesh. He’s sick of this hockey shit. He is “staying to guard the sanctity of this day.” Everyone leaves Darvesh alone in the temple.
Rob Lowe makes Raj the captain again, and the game is on. There is a whole ass wedding party in the stands, living it up. Toronto hockey doesn’t deserve this. CBC supplied commentators for this. This game is everything. Everyone brings up how the Speedy Singhs look like hockey warriors. Rob Lowe also dresses up, forgoing the usual coach’s suit and choosing to wear a leather jacket.
Geoff Ward, I know you’re reading this. You know what to do.
The Hammerheads take an early lead. Back at the temple, Darvesh wanders the temple, and finds the Granthi and a bunch of other Sikhs listening to the game on the radio. Darvesh relents, and listens to the game with them.
On the ice, Raj has learned not to be selfish, and finally passes to a teammate. They score, and the game is even. Oh, and the goon just destroys anyone in his sights. The refs are taking the game off. Who cares. Raj scores. Speedy Singhs are up by one with less a minute in the game. They get cocky, because they are finally good at hockey. Well, that’s a fool’s maneuver. Obviously, the Hammerheads tie it up.
Rob Lowe takes the intermission before overtime to inspire the Speedy Singhs, telling them they can use this overtime to “prove to an entire country that you belong.” Holy fuck, just let immigrants live normal lives they don’t all have to be super humans to justify moving.
Overtime is about to start and hey would you look at that Darvesh changed his mind and he’s at the arena now. Sure is gonna suck if the Speedy Singhs lose now!
Oh shit, everyone else had a momentarily lapse in judgment and now Raj is on a breakaway, just like his daydream in the start of the film! This is why it’s called Breakaway!!! During the breakaway, there is a montage of everyone in the film telling Raj that he isn’t worth shit, before the final clip is Darvesh telling Raj he’ll be proud of him one day, and Raj buries it in overtime with confidence.
Immigrants: good?
#BecauseItsTheHyundaiCup
Anyway, Raj and Darvesh completely bury the hatchet, and all is well. Oh, and Raj and Melissa make out at centre ice.
Anyway, the credit rolls, and there’s a Bollywood-style dance number over the credits. Remember earlier when I said that the ludicrous maneuver was foreshadowing? That’s because Ludacris has a cameo in this! At the very end for some reason.
And now, unlike Breakaway, I have satisfying resolved all the dangling threads I had in this review.
Having watched this movie, I’m shocked to learn that it bombed in not one, but several languages. Who was it made for? Why is Russell Peters here? How did every Indian have the same last name? When did they learn to play hockey?
I hope you enjoyed this. I hope this was for something. I hope my girlfriend forgives me for asking her to watch this with me. So far, she has not.
This has been Burn The Tape.