Admittedly, despite being pretty much a copy of “21” (right down to a few scenes and sequences!) “Teen Patti” could still have carved out a niche as a bold, experimental and exciting film for Bollywood. Instead, bogged down by a clunky script and generally underwhelming thrills, it only middles as an average flick.
The ‘brilliant-professor-finds-a-way-to-cheat-at-a-game-of-cards-and-puts-together-a-student-ring’ feel that was there in “21” is replicated here, albeit with convenient Indianisation – MIT becomes BIT; Prof. doesn’t do it because you can make loads of money through amoral means but because he wants to ‘test’ his theory and he is being blackmailed! But the film focuses less on the mechanics of the operation (the theory that helps Prof. Venkat Subramanium, played by Amitabh Bachchan, unlock the secret to win big at the game is never quite fleshed out) and more on the toll the entire exercise takes on the personal lives and the relationship between the students and the Professors – Venkat and Shantanu Biswas, played by R Madhavan. Madhavan plays the junior Professor who encourages Venkat to implement his theory in a real setting.
It might have been a smart idea if clumsy subplots and meaningless cameos did not keep interrupting the flow of the story. Ben Kingsley has a tiny role (as a mathematician, Perci Trachtenberg), and while he attempts to bring all the poise that only Sir Ben can to the role, the character is etched too flimsily to stand out. Even the twist at the end is kind of predictable. The Big B is dependable as usual and the newcomers are adequate but it’s not quite their fault. They had to deal with a bad hand in the form of a semi-baked story and script to start with.
For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009
The ‘brilliant-professor-finds-a-way-to-cheat-at-a-game-of-cards-and-puts-together-a-student-ring’ feel that was there in “21” is replicated here, albeit with convenient Indianisation – MIT becomes BIT; Prof. doesn’t do it because you can make loads of money through amoral means but because he wants to ‘test’ his theory and he is being blackmailed! But the film focuses less on the mechanics of the operation (the theory that helps Prof. Venkat Subramanium, played by Amitabh Bachchan, unlock the secret to win big at the game is never quite fleshed out) and more on the toll the entire exercise takes on the personal lives and the relationship between the students and the Professors – Venkat and Shantanu Biswas, played by R Madhavan. Madhavan plays the junior Professor who encourages Venkat to implement his theory in a real setting.
It might have been a smart idea if clumsy subplots and meaningless cameos did not keep interrupting the flow of the story. Ben Kingsley has a tiny role (as a mathematician, Perci Trachtenberg), and while he attempts to bring all the poise that only Sir Ben can to the role, the character is etched too flimsily to stand out. Even the twist at the end is kind of predictable. The Big B is dependable as usual and the newcomers are adequate but it’s not quite their fault. They had to deal with a bad hand in the form of a semi-baked story and script to start with.
For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009
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