Filmmaker Leena Yadav must be absolutely convinced that our fear of mathematics would keep us away from figuring out how her theory of probability works.
Hence, math in Teen Patti becomes mumbo-jumbo manifested through an overdose, an abuse rather, of A Beautiful Mind -inspired visual effects of math formulas, equations and assorted nonsense scribbled all over the frames as Professor Venkat Subramanium (Amitabh Bachchan speaking funny Tamil) does his calculations.
Ambition and greed is the bane of Teen Patti . Not just the moral of the story, it's the moral of the making of this film.
Teen Patti wants to be too many things. It wants to be this slick Hollywood-sensibility film with Ben Kingsley and Amitabh Bachchan having profound conversations about life and math, magic and logic, questions and answers, among other things.
It also wants to be a desi thriller involving a mysterious blackmailer, probably a Johnny Gaddar within the group. Teen Patti further has ambitions of teaching young people moral science lessons along with mathematics and also wants to make a grander statement about how knowledge is power and power spells responsibility, and that it should be used to unite, not divide people.
And, it also wants to have a James Bondian item number (No doubt that Maria Gomez will make your ‘Neeyat Kharab') thrown in along with Bonnie and Clyde references and multiple sub-plots to keep every character in the ensemble busy.
Having taken so much to chew, the filmmaker gets very little time to flesh out characters and hurls them all straight into the plot — a mission that begins as an experiment to test out the Professor's theory of probability goes wrong and leaves them at the mercy of a mysterious blackmailer.
And, though it is only the professor who knows to apply his ‘mathemagic' to win teen patti games, the students strangely start developing Bonnie and Clyde ambitions of their own. Almost instantly, they start becoming evil. One kid buys a gun, another goes home with a prostitute and even one of their lecturers on the verge of getting committed (R. Madhavan) does not waste time flirting with a firang chick (Saira Mohan).
Since we see them all getting evil, it hardly surprises us when each twist unfolds predictably in the middle of all that leisurely chitter-chatter that Ben and Bachchan do. The whole misadventure is told in a flashback as a conversation between the veterans at a foreign university.
So, our involvement in the story from the seemingly distant past is limited right from the start, especially since we know that the good old professor, the only man we care for, is safe and sound and having tea with his idol Ben Kingsley.
Yes, it's all slick, stylish, sexy and lavishly executed, often reminding you of another all style and little substance film Kaizad Gustad made with Bachchan: Boom!
Teen Patti may meet a similar fate too but Leena must be credited for investing in young talent. Despite their half-baked roles, the kids — Siddharth Kher, Dhruv Ganesh, Shraddha Kapoor and Vaibhav Talwar — aren't bad at all, ably guided by an earnest R. Madhavan through this undercooked film.
But the man who can do no wrong (if you can forget that he's playing a Tamilian) is Amitabh Bachchan. He holds his own against Ben Kingsley, breathing intensity and sincerity into the most pretentious sounding lines.
There are a couple of scenes with superlative performances by the young actors, especially before the revelation of the mystery of the blackmailer but for these rare glimpses of heart, Teen Patti glosses over everything else.
Most of it is all con. The game leaves you cheated without living up to its promise or realising its potential.
Teen Patti
Genre: Thriller
Director: Leena Yadav
Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Ben Kingsley, R. Madhavan, Shraddha Kapoor, Siddharth Kher, Dhruv Ganesh, Vaibhav Talwar, Saira Mohan
Storyline: A math professor teams up with his students to test out his theory of probability that can help him win the Indian variant of three-card Poker, only to find himself caught in a web of deceit, blackmail and betrayal.
Bottomline: Whatever little intrigue Teen Patti packs in is weighed down by verbosity, pop philosophy and contrived analogies between life and math, but Bachchan is superlative.
