TEEN PATTI MOVIE REVIEW

Starring: : Amitabh Bachchan, Sir Ben Kingsley, R Madhavan, Raima Sen, Dhruv Ganesh, Siddharth Kher. Direction: Leena Yadav Music: Salim-Sulaiman Production: Serendipity Films Two legends of our times Amitabh and Sir Ben Kingsley in ‘Teen Patti’ are more than enough to lure the movie fanatics lining up at the ticket window. This Leena Yadav’s second attempt after the rather confused and controversial ‘Shabd’ has taken its theme from the 2008 hit ’21’. A mathematical experiment drives a bunch of people into the world of crime, passion, greed, jealousy and deception. And add in some twists and that is what Teen Patti is all about. Leena has improved leaps and bounds as a director but not as a story teller. The movie had a confusing flow, quite reminiscent to her previous movie. Logical and continuation mistakes were aplenty. The biggest being that the mathematical formula just tells you who will win the game and not a tweak on how to win, and with that Amitabh

and Co. winning in crores was illogical. There were many unanswered questions as well. What happened to the killing of the black mailer? Why didn’t the police try to find more about the money that they apprehended? How is it possible to give away 6 crores to someone without a reason? How is it possible that the only punishment for the death of a student is accepting the resignation of the lecturer involved? But the power and greed for money was well shown.

Technically the movie was quite an ace, with Aseem Bajaj’s brilliant work behind the camera, Kaushik and Hughes innovative editing tricks, a spooky background sound by Andrew Belletty and a good musical score by Salim-Sulaiman.

Amitabh Bachchan acts like a King, as a mathematical genius, and seeing him with Ben Kingsley was a treat. The only put off being the dubbed Hindi version of their conversation. Sir Ben Kingsley’s role demanded no histrionics and yet he impresses us with his eyes and body language, a true artist. Madhavan was exceptional as a professor with negative shades and looked every bit convincing. Siddharth Kher, Abbas Sheikh and Shraddha were good in their respective roles. Bikram Ashwin Dhar as Dhruv was brilliant. What were Ajay Devgn and Jackie Shroff doing in this film? At least Shakthi Kapoor comes and voices out a brilliant punch line. Complete waste of talent.

Overall a movie which can be seen as an experimental escapist cinema or just a below average movie with two legends in it.

Verdict: Leena wastes talent once again