STARRING

Amitabh Bachchan, Sir Ben Kingsley, R Madhavan, Saira Mohan, Raima Sen, Dhruv Ganesh , Shraddha Kapoor, Siddharth  Kher, Vaibhav Talwar and others.

DIRECTION

Leena Yadav

STORY

The plot of the flick revolves around the character of Professor Venkat Subramaniyam (Amitabh Bachchan) and Professor Perci Trachtenberg (Sir Ben Kingsley). Venkat meets Perci in a London’s casino and explains him about a theory that can be utilized to change the face of field of probability and may even revolutionize the whole world of knowledge.

Venkat’s theory questioned the very basis of what is random and what is fated, and could be applied for good work as well for bad works of the world. Initially, Venkat was reluctant to use his equation in the gambling dens but later on the persuasion of Professor Shantanu(R Madhavan) agrees to test its veracity at casinos.

Shantanu was an ambitious and greedy person and wanted to rake in quick moolah. Through his students, Shantanu manages to get the addresses of some gambling dens and visits them with Professor Venkat.

Initially, everything went smoothly but soon Venkat and Shantanu get caught in the whirlwind of events and lose control on them. Even students’ past life is shown and how they lost their innocence and moral fiber.

What happens to them and how Venkat, Shantanu and Perci come out of it, forms the rest the flick.  

PERFORMANCE

Amitabh Bachchan, who plays the character of mathematics genius Prof Venkat Subramaniam, looks every inch the character. In fact, Bachchan is so confident and comfortable in essaying the role that it seems to be tailor-made for his towering personality and intellectual bent of mind (obviously coming from his great poet father Harivansh Rai Bachchan).

Amitabh’s conversation with great scientist Albert Einstein whenever he is alone provides a new insight into Bachchan’s towering performance and convincing power. Big B’s speech at the function moves everybody and is one of the brilliant points of the flick.  His interaction with Sin Ben Kingsley is especially powerful and shows his confidence and conviction in his acting prowess.

Sir Ben Kinglsey, who had played the character of Gandhi in Richard Attenborough’s ‘Gandhi’ with so conviction and panache earlier, comes out with a good performance in the part of a magician and mathematics professor Perci.

Kingsley’s presence with Bachchan in the film provides the rare glimpse of two giants providing some riveting moments. However, instead of being just a listener, Kingsley could have been given more active role and that could have enhanced the prospect of the film.

R Madhavan, who essays the part of Professor Shantanu Viswas, comes out as a versatile actor who does not fear having some negative segment in his role. In fact, Madhavan raises his performance several notches with these seemingly grey areas in his character. In any case, the actor is already on a roll after the super success of ‘3 Idiots’ and with this film party continues.

Shraddha Kapur, Shakti Kapoor’s daughter who makes her bollywood debut with this flick, comes out as a confident actor who knows her mind. She essays the part of young student for Big B’s experiments with conviction and comes out a winner.

 Raima Sen looks good and performs her role with confidence.   Dhruv, Siddharth and Vaibhav, who play the part of other three students involved in Big B’s experiment look confident and provide able support to main cast of the flick.

Shakti Kapoor, who plays a cameo in the film, comes out as usual confident. Even Tinnu Anand gets some scope and does well. However others like Ajay Devgn, Jackie Shroff etc fail to impress in their little cameo roles.

The direction of Leena Yadav is certainly an improvement on her last flick ‘Shabd’, but uneven writing seems to be her undoing here. Even the pace in the second half of the flick is very slow and the flick refuses to move out of gambling dens.

The music by Salim-Sulaiman is good. Of all the songs, two tracks ‘Teri Neeyat Kharab Hai’(by Sunidhi) and the end credit number are rocking and already popular with the audiences. The cinematography by Aseem Merchant makes the flick a treat to watch. Ashley Lobo has done a fantastic choreography in the film.


STARDUST VERDICT

The film has some magical moments where Amitabh Bachchan and Ben Kingsley interact. No doubt, both are rocking and great in their performances. But this is all for classes and not the hoi polloi who go for entertainment in movies. To a certain extent ‘Teri Neeyat Kharab Hai’ tries to make the lost ground but does not seem enough for the aam janta to flock to theatres for just one or two numbers. An above average flick.