When Bollywood chooses to take the preaching route, more often than not, it’s packed with its fair share of irony. The same could be said about pretty much any movie based around education. Why Cheat India is the latest of the lot.
Notwithstanding the irony, a vast majority of Bollywood films are gauged on the entertainment coefficient. And that’s another of the many front where the movie absolutely falters.
Rakesh (Emraan Hashmi) is a man brimming over with vengeance after falling prey to the educational ecological system of India. While his brother became a doctor, he failed the entrance test multiple times. Such a scenario is usually Bollywood’s setup to justify the anti-hero becoming a con.
Rakesh sells seats in engineering colleges to students who get tempted to pay for these services as they, too, have been brainwashed with the age old adage in our neck of the woods: that the only way to get to the top is by becoming a doctor or an engineer.
Meanwhile, there is Sattu (Snigdhadeep Chatterjee),who is lauded in his town for cracking the entrance exam. And soon it becomes obvious where Sattu, and the film, is headed as the good student goesrogue.
If one began counting the loopholes in the film, it might be an exercise longer that the movie itself. For instance, when Sattu excels in his exam, one doesn’t know which exam it was. Quite evidently, the script that centered around education, overlooked the act of educating itself, when it comes to focusing on the smaller details.
Similarly, there is a severe dearth of research in the writing. Again, how can a film that is underlining what ails the education system of a country, get the name of one of its famous authors and educationists wrong? And that’s just one of the many instances where the lack of effort on the filmmakers’ part stares you in the face.
Why Cheat India carries forth another Bollywood trend, which is to make con games appear as though just about anyone can wake up one day and successfully run a ring – if they have the backing of the director and the screenwriter, of course. There are oversimplifications galore, and one can’t help but wonder that some of the stuff that the evil minds are pulling off means that they need a certain level of education themselves.
Often when not much is working for a Bollywood film, music can come to the rescue. Here it serves as the source of excruciating pit stops in a storyline that is often all over the place any way. Unfortunately just like the soundtrack, humour seems to be stuffed in the film as well, with various scenes designed for comic relief completely detached from the film itself.
What is pretty much the only thing about the film that works is Emraan Hashmi. It is hard to imagine an actor better suited for the role, but it’s also evident that he has put in the proverbial yards to make Rakesh work as well. The trademark Emraan Hashmi charm works seamlessly in the film, and if anyone might have enjoyed the movie, that would be largely down to the performance of the lead actor.
Even so, again, Why Cheat India has nothing else to show other than Emraan Hashmi, even if that would suffice in bringing in the actor’s fan base to the cinema. The film’s preachiness – like that of many others – is the principal cause of its downfall, ensuring that it fails as both the medium delivering a message that was clearly beyond its scope, and also as any form of tangibly sustained entertainment.
Notwithstanding the irony, a vast majority of Bollywood films are gauged on the entertainment coefficient. And that’s another of the many front where the movie absolutely falters.
Rakesh (Emraan Hashmi) is a man brimming over with vengeance after falling prey to the educational ecological system of India. While his brother became a doctor, he failed the entrance test multiple times. Such a scenario is usually Bollywood’s setup to justify the anti-hero becoming a con.
What is pretty much the only thing about the film that works is Emraan Hashmi
Rakesh sells seats in engineering colleges to students who get tempted to pay for these services as they, too, have been brainwashed with the age old adage in our neck of the woods: that the only way to get to the top is by becoming a doctor or an engineer.
Meanwhile, there is Sattu (Snigdhadeep Chatterjee),who is lauded in his town for cracking the entrance exam. And soon it becomes obvious where Sattu, and the film, is headed as the good student goesrogue.
If one began counting the loopholes in the film, it might be an exercise longer that the movie itself. For instance, when Sattu excels in his exam, one doesn’t know which exam it was. Quite evidently, the script that centered around education, overlooked the act of educating itself, when it comes to focusing on the smaller details.
Similarly, there is a severe dearth of research in the writing. Again, how can a film that is underlining what ails the education system of a country, get the name of one of its famous authors and educationists wrong? And that’s just one of the many instances where the lack of effort on the filmmakers’ part stares you in the face.
Why Cheat India carries forth another Bollywood trend, which is to make con games appear as though just about anyone can wake up one day and successfully run a ring – if they have the backing of the director and the screenwriter, of course. There are oversimplifications galore, and one can’t help but wonder that some of the stuff that the evil minds are pulling off means that they need a certain level of education themselves.
Often when not much is working for a Bollywood film, music can come to the rescue. Here it serves as the source of excruciating pit stops in a storyline that is often all over the place any way. Unfortunately just like the soundtrack, humour seems to be stuffed in the film as well, with various scenes designed for comic relief completely detached from the film itself.
What is pretty much the only thing about the film that works is Emraan Hashmi. It is hard to imagine an actor better suited for the role, but it’s also evident that he has put in the proverbial yards to make Rakesh work as well. The trademark Emraan Hashmi charm works seamlessly in the film, and if anyone might have enjoyed the movie, that would be largely down to the performance of the lead actor.
Even so, again, Why Cheat India has nothing else to show other than Emraan Hashmi, even if that would suffice in bringing in the actor’s fan base to the cinema. The film’s preachiness – like that of many others – is the principal cause of its downfall, ensuring that it fails as both the medium delivering a message that was clearly beyond its scope, and also as any form of tangibly sustained entertainment.