Shaan ( Arshad Warsi ) is the captain of the Southall football club, comprising of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi players. The club is only for namesake, its field being used for parties and weddings to earn the extra buck. There is no coach. The players are pot-bellied and flat-footed. No wonder, the club hasn’t won a tournament for decades.

Now, a bigger danger looms over the club. If they don’t pay their pending lease of the last seven years, the players risk losing the club to the greedy sharks who want to make money out of turning the place into a commercial complex. Their only hope is to win the Combined Counties Football League in England and save the club through the prize money of 3 million.

Shaan finds a new coach, Tony Singh ( Boman Irani ), for the team. In turn, Tony finds a new striker Sunny ( John Abraham ) who has been dropped from an English team because of his color. But Sunny and Shaan don’t like each other.

Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal’ has flaws one too many. Firstly, the movie lacks genuine humour (except a few moments). Secondly, the racist angle is stretched beyond credibility. The angst of the South Asians towards the whites is understandable, but the director harps on it time and again, unwillingly making the coloured ones look no less racist. For instance, check out the tirade of John’s sidekick after John is dropped from an English team.

Give Arshad Warsi a clearly defined role and watch him bring it to life with his spontaneity, but in this film can you blame him for playing out his part with such indifference? Bipasha Basu as the girl-next-door physician seems ill at ease trying to hide her inherent oomph behind those simple spectacles, and John Abraham may be charming as hell flashing those dimples every three seconds, but it’s hardly the kind of film they’re going to be remembered for. The rest of the cast — Raj Zutshi, Kushal Punjabi and the others — over-act just as much as the main leads and hence fail to rise above the severely flawed script.

The least you expect from a film about sport is some spectacularly shot sporting action, but the football scenes in Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal are plain predictable and boringly photographed. Think of the cricket scenes in Lagaan, or the hockey scenes in Chak De India, and you’ll agree that they were original and imaginative and they kept you at the edge of your seat because they were so thrilling.

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