Inside Story – A season with Rajasthan Royals aims at showing the fans behind-the-scenes video footage of the team's journey in 2019. There are two things wrong here. One, they themselves don't have the footage of the games they have played in. Two, there is no story or storytelling, either of an underdog going on to win the tournament or its fall, its rise, its anything. There is nothing. Instead, it is a bland, boring, heartless video reel.
The 2019 edition was one of the poorest editions for Royals. Just five wins in 14 games proves that. That is why one wonders what the documentary is trying to do here. Inside story of what? A team that performed so badly? Who wants to watch a behind-the-scenes story of a team which failed to even reach the playoffs of the league that year.
The weakest point in the documentary is where it starts – directly from the 2019 season. The Royals came back into the IPL after a ban of two years, in 2018, and reached the playoffs. That is a better story to tell. But again, there was just a passing mention of it. There is also barely anything about their history. The history is talked about through commentary by the franchise owners or support staff, ex and current players. There is Shane Warne too who speaks about their first campaign and then quickly jumps to the 2019 edition.
The problem lies with the idea of the documentary, which is more of a PR exercise, to build a brand than film-making. Why it lacks a story is because the makers are not interested in telling it else they would have worked hard and done a better job. The exercise is to make a brand, build its value. However, a sports team's brand is built either on its excellent performances or a strong legacy. While Rajasthan did win the first edition of IPL, they have failed magnificently to build a strong legacy for themselves. Their brand was actually massively hit by the corruption scam and the eventual ban. And their past performances in the tournament also don't make a story which generates a curiosity among anyone.
In this three-episode documentary streaming on Red Bull TV, there is nothing much to take from. The players talk about preparing well, coaches stress on the need to practice well, importance of coaching, the management speaks about how they built a team at the auction table. These are all mundane things and sports is much more than that. But one has to realise that this boring narrative is due to one basic problem – all this happens throughout the documentary because there is nothing much to tell.
In one of the episodes, the documentary still struggling to build a narrative, even moves to the hospitality manager describing her job, that how she takes care of the VVIPs who come to watch the match at Sawai Man Singh stadium. Red Bull, which produced the documentary, manages to chip in with some details of university tournaments and youth cricket camps they organise in partnership with Royals, so that is taken care of. Imagine a documentary on a cricket team, talking more to a hospitality manager of the team than the curator at the stadium or other important people who are involved in the game.
As Royals continue to lose, there is no analysis into why they were losing and what they are doing to win. The key members who run the team – the logistics manager, the physiotherapist, coaches – give insight to what they do but no effort is made to go beyond that. Mundaneness is what defines this one-hour docu, divided into three parts.
There is nothing to look for in this documentary. When the makers do not even think of using the match footage and opt to make shabby animations to show the on-field action and results, you know this documentary is more of a show reel to pitch to investors. This documentary is not meant for the audience.
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