Striker (2010 film)

Striker
Theatrical poster
Directed by	Chandan Arora
Produced by	Chandan Arora
Written by	Chandan Arora Sunita Rajwar
Starring	Siddharth Padmapriya Aditya Pancholi Ankur Vikal Anupam Kher Seema Biswas Nicolette Bird
Cinematography	P. S. Vinod
Edited by	Sajit Unnikrishnan
Production company	Indian Films Makefilms
Distributed by	Studio 18
Release date	5 February 2010 (2010-02-05)
Country	India
Language	Hindi

Striker is a 2010 Bollywood action-drama film written, directed and produced by Chandan Arora. It stars Siddharth, Vidya Malvade, Padmapriya, Nicolette Bird, Anupam Kher, Seema Biswas and Aditya Pancholi. The film had a theatrical release in cinemas throughout India on 5 February 2010. It also premiered on YouTube the same day, thus becoming the first ever Indian film to premiere on YouTube internationally on the same day as its domestic theatrical release.

Born into a poor family, Surya grows up with few luxuries. Poor health keeps him away from school often and that is when his elder brother, Chandrakant, introduces him to carrom. Winning the Junior Carrom Championship at 12 is not enough to keep Surya's fire for the sport burning through adolescence. Hopes for a job in Dubai replace the passion for carrom as Surya grows into a young man. Duped by a bogus overseas employment agency, Surya loses all his hard earned money he had saved for going to Dubai. Surya is forced to cross paths with Jaleel.

Since the 70's when the settlements in the ghetto began, Jaleel had acquired a strong hold in the area. He had his hands in every illicit activity since then. Feeding on the weaknesses of people, Jaleel was the self-proclaimed king of Malwani. Reintroduced to carrom by his childhood friend Zaid, this time to the carrom hustling scene, Surya starts playing again. Being cheated of his hard earned money by the same man who had caused misery for many families; Surya decides to take on Jaleel on his turf. His patience and cool attitude are Surya's biggest strengths. But life has its own ways of testing it.

The film fared very poorly at the Indian box office. Though it was given only a one-week theatrical run, it garnered critical acclaim. However, being the first film in history to premiere the same day on YouTube, the film garnered over 800,000 views in the first 2 weeks. Estimated profits from this are said to be over USD 1mn.