Our Movies: Tathastu

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Tathastu
Cast: Denzel Dutt, Amisha Blondie
Direction: Anubhav (really?) Sinha
Rating: **
Ouuch, aaaaeee. Ear-curdling wails emanate from a woman held hostage in a hospital lobby. That’s not her hobby though. Indeed, very seriously she’s asked, “What’s the matter?” Mercy be,  an orderly pitter patters over to announce, “She is about to deliver a baby.”

Wow, Anubhav Sinha’s Tathastu is not quite sure whether it wants to be a pitch black comedy or a crotchety cause flick, critiquing the nation’s inadequate medical facilities, Kafkaesque insurance policies and draconian factory rules.

On your Marx then, get set and groan. Hello but every visual frame and idea is cloned quite blatantly from the Denzil Washington ICU drama titled John Q – which incidentally had quite a few similaraties to Al Pacino’s Dog Day Afternoon. Woof you maa.

Oh well, even if you don’t expect originality from Sinha of Dus, at least you crave gyarah-barah moments which will stir if not shake you. To be fair, the first half is quite engrossing. A millworker (Sanjay Dutt) and his pout-pout wife (Amisha Patel) discover that their only son (a tennish cherub) is suffering from a terminal heart disease.

Pay up Rs 15 lakhs for a miraculous operation, a very expressionless doc orders. Assistant doc Jaya, in fashionable Prada gear, looks on as blankly as a book without pages.

Despite such implausibilities, you’re with the grave (ulp) situation. Pushed into a corner, Dad Factory holds the hospi’s 12th floor hostage. From this point, alas the plot becomes a virtual saga of a raging daddy in a china shop.

Meanwhile, on ground level a senior suited-booted police officer (Gulshan Grover chewing mint), a cliched politician (Ghoulish Grimaces) and overzealous TV reporters, make you wish you could switch to another channel. Zap zip please.

Coming to the resolution, it’s a massive cop-out. Sanjay Dutt’s performance is sincere but not extraordinary. Also, the cosy residence of the factoryman is all wrong–it’s a cushy one-storey abode which could have instantly fetched him a crore, if not more. Even on pugree. And please, why an Oddidas-style designer jacket for our pitahma who’s scrounging around for every paisa and rupee?

In addition, Amisha Patel showing off stiletto heels, strawberry pink nails, liquidy lip-gloss and Barbie-doll blonde hair, is grossly miscast as a poor mataji in distress. Sigh. Instead of being hard-hitting, this Tathastu is much dye-hard about nothing.

Vulgar Manalogue
Dino Anuj and Jimmy
Cast: Tom Dick and Harry
Direction: Oops, Deepak Tijori
Rating: *

Be warned: The forgotten Avtaar Gill races into a sin-sin-a-ki-boobla-boo, forcing a blind boy to bend so that he can be mounted. Gay gay re saiba?
Kids play with condom balloons.
The camera dives into a fisherwoman’s cleavage to investigate if her blouse hides any pomfrets.
 A wacko villain (Gulshan Grover, yet again) conducts a global flesh trade with junior artistes (female) looking as if they were about to protest for a lunch break.  An oldish man slob-slobbers (IPTA veteran) over the domestic help (Yikes Kumari).

That’s Deepak Tijori’s Dino Jimmy and Anuj (Tom Dick and Harry) who go through the See No Evil, Hear No Evil vulgar manalogue all over again. Never mind if the language versions of the stage play All the Best and the insufferable Pyare Mohan have done it all before.

Obviously the intention is to cater to the lowest-common denominator. Which is why you wonder why actors of potential like Dino Morea (trying to be ewww-so cute) and Jimmy Shergill (shaping his mouth  annoyingly into a parrot’s beak) agreed to such a yawnterprise.

As for Anuj Sawhney, super-annoyingly he mistakes  a squint for blindness. The glam quotient is exuded by Kim Sharma (hot) and Celina Jaitly  hotter), in thankless roles, that could have been written for micro-ovens. Manoj Soni, usually a creative cinematographer, appears to suffering from blurred vision.

Himesh Reshammiya’s disco track Zara jhoom rocks even though it’s picturised like a wannabe music video.
Bottomwhine: Oops,after Tijori’s crudo 16 reeler, you emerge feeling as if you were a brain-impaired 60. As avoidable as mango without a gutli.
khalid@dnaindia.net