You’ve got a Joker…

Pic: Hinduja Ventures; Source: Wikipedia

You take first rate actors like Amitabh Bachchan and Ben Kingsley and waste them in a super boring copy of a super interesting English film (though the makers refute the claim but a lot of us have seen Kevin Spacey’s ‘21’); that is what Teen Patti is, a boring film. It is director, Leena Yadav’s second film after Shabd, which didn’t work but was far superior to this dud.  

Teen Patti is about a Mathematics professor, Venkat Subramaniam (Amitabh Bachchan) who comes up with a card counting technique using the theory of probability. He wants to submit the same as his dissertation. He is convinced by his colleague, Shantanu Biswas (R. Madhavan) and a few students (Dhruv Ganesh, Shraddha Kapoor, Siddharth Kher and Vaibhav Talwar) to test the same through practical application. Since we do not have Vegas like casinos in India, the gambling scenes are either presented in dingy illegal gambling dens or at private parties. There are many gambling sequences in the film but none of them gripping enough to hold your interest (remember the card game in Casino Royale). Anyways, there are other twists in the film that becomes a whodunit in the second half. There are many forgettable and unimpressive cameos and actors like Jackie Shroff, Ajay Devgn, Mahesh Manjrekar, Shakti Kapoor, Raima Sen and Tinnu Anand are completely wasted.

Amitabh Bachchan does what he is asked to do in the film and so does Madhavan. Both of them are unable to save the film because of the lousy screenplay and poor acting by the new comers. Leena Yadav clearly made this film for the multiplex audience as an important part of the film is in English (AB’s interaction with Ben Kingsley), that too without Hindi subtitles limiting any chances in the smaller centres. She should have realized that the audience she is trying to reach out to have already seen 21, Casino Royale and the Ocean’s series. And why is Ben Kingsley there? Just because you got him to say yes! If you do not have a proper role for an actor of that caliber, please do not approach him.

Overall, Teen Patti is one of the lamest films I have seen lately and would not recommend it to anyone.

My Rating: * ½ One and a half star on five

– Shrey Khetarpal