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Chhalaang () is a 2020 Indian Hindi-language sports film Comedy drama directed by Hansal Mehta. It is produced by Ajay Devgn, Luv Ranjan, Ankur Garg and presented by Bhushan Kumar. Chhalaang stars Rajkummar Rao, Nushrat Bharucha and Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub.
Principal photography commenced in last quarter of 2018. Initially named Turram Khan, Chhalaang was wrapped up in August 2019. Initially scheduled for a theatrical premiere, it was directly released online on Amazon Prime Video on 13 November 2020, coinciding with Diwali.
To his surprise, Montu finds out that the school hired a new PTI, Inder Mohan Singh, as the government required PTIs to have a physical education degree, which Montu didn't have. Begrudgingly, Montu accepts a role as Singh's assistant. Montu quickly realizes that Inder Mohan is a much better PT teacher than him, and gets even more irked when Neelu starts spending more time with Inder Mohan. One day, Singh keeps Montu's brother, Bablu, pinned to the ground as a punishment for not paying attention. This leads to a fight between Montu and Singh, after which Montu quits his job at the school.
Montu soon realizes that he cannot quit his job, and returns to the school to challenge Inder Mohan with a three sport competition: basketball, a 400m relay race, and kabaddi. Montu and Inder Mohan would coach the two separate groups of students participating. Whoever's team won the competition would stay as the PT teacher, while the other would have to leave, and Inder Mohan accepts the challenge. Montu foolishly lets Singh choose his team first in an attempt to impress Neelu by showing her his humility, and it backfires on him when he is left with a significantly weaker team.
As Montu starts to lose hope, Neelu comes to his side and helps him coach his team. She advises him to choose several girls for his team, which he does. Then, she helps him implement very unorthodox training regimes, such as running from guard dogs to increase speed, catching loose chickens to increase agility, and dribbling a basketball through a cow dung minefield to increase dribbling ability. Their efforts pay off, however, the children's parents start to revolt, saying that the competition is dragging their children's focus away from studies. Montu's father with the help of Neelu manage to get them back on board by using blackmail and threatening to re-open existing legal cases against them.
At the competition, Singh's team barely beat Montu's team in basketball, but Montu's team wins the competition with close victories in the 400m relay race and kabaddi. Inder Mohan accepts his defeat and congratulates Montu. Since, he realises that Singh is a much better coach than him, Montu proposes the idea of working together with Singh, as he has to learn a lot from him. Montu thanks the students and their parents for their trust and dedication. He then declares his love for Neelu, and she accepts his love proposal.
Principal photography for the film began in late-2018. In June 2019, Rao and Mehta, along with Ayyub, were spotted filming a kabaddi scene in Mumbai's Film City.
In December 2019, the title of the film was changed to "Chhalaang", which means "Jump".
The song "Deedar De" is a recreation of "Deedar De" from the film Dus by Vishal–Shekhar. People online criticized Vishal–Shekhar for recreating their song, but the duo clarified that they did not recreate the song, they were credited because they composed the original.
Mike McCahill of [[The Guardian]] gave the film three out of 5, writing, "Drama specialist Mehta (2012’s Shahid) brings to this a professionalism you could easily underrate. Handled carelessly, fluff like this often unravels into nonsense, but Chhalaang feels faintly precious for landing intact near the end of a heavy year."
Anupama Chopra of Film Companion gave a negative review, writing, "Chhalaang isn’t tear-your-hair-out awful. It’s just ordinary." Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV gave the film two out of five, writing, "Chhalaang, unable to fend off its contradictions, gets all tangled up in its own mixed messages. As a result, the promised leap never materialises."
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