TE3N movie Review/BO thread - Page 2

TE3N is the kind of film that bores first and frustrates later, complains Raja Sen.

There are things TE3N gets charmingly right. It starts with a moment straight out ofGol Maal, set at a police station, an affectionate tribute to kick things off, serving also as a sobering reminder thatAmitabh Bachchan, once the lanky lead (or lead's closest friend) in sparkling Hrishikesh Mukherjee comedies, is now (much) older than Utpal Dutt was when he filmed that immortal scene with Keshto Mukherjee.

While on actors and aging, the film also features Bengali veteran Sabyasachi Chakrabarty, who memorably played Feluda in Sandip Ray's films. True to form, in the one scene where Chakrabarty smokes, his cigarette of choice, like the famously loyal sleuth, is a Charminar.

Age -- and, indeed, time -- are important parts of director Ribhu Dasgupta's narrative in his confoundingly titled thriller, and Bachchan is the ideal choice for the part of an inconsolable grandfather, doggedly desperate to find out about a long-ago kidnapping that led to his granddaughter's death. The actor shuffles through both bewilderment and clarity, everything a struggle for his John Biswas, from starting a scooter to remembering the name of the soup he's making.

He's terrific in the part, evocative and righteous and overreaching for the truth but alas, Dasgupta seems too smitten with Bachchan to get a move on and tell the story. A remake of the Korean thriller Montage, Te3n unfolds its dramatic plot -- too sluggishly -- but this isn't too bad until we hit the climax, after which the film's makers are too obsessed with Bachchan (and his reactions to the climax, and its twist) to let the story work.

One of the most exasperating things about Hindi movies are their over-reliance on flashbacks, their need to spoon-feed audiences by reminding them of something they saw 10 minutes ago, and the last half-hour of Te3n goes on interminably, recapping the entire film as if to show us how clever they've been. Tragically, however, they haven't been clever at all. It's difficult not to predict the film's twist, and -- the fundamental problem in films that hinge too critically on that massive twist -- when that doesn't fall into place, the whole house of cards collapses to the ground.

Bachchan, as said, plays John The Victim, a grieving-bereaving role uncannily similar to the one he played in Wazir mere months ago.

Nawazuddin Siddiqui plays Father Martin, a former policeman (now a short-sleeved clergyman) who happens to be John's confidante. This, it must be said, is not Siddiqui at his brightest. The actor, perhaps in a bid to create a coldly efficient character, plays his part too drily to be as compelling as the film demands, and -- worse still -- delivers unfunny lines with the air of a comic waiting for a laugh. He is completely shown up by the reliably effective Vidya Balan who, with one disbelieving mention of his name, dangling question mark raised at the end like an eyebrow, brings alive character and context immediately. "Father Martin?"

And, of course, by Bachchan, who exposes Siddiqui's sloppy accent work; as the younger actor stumbles over 'Ripon Sitreet' in the most un-Bengali fashion, the veteran expertly drops in subtle touches like saying 'kidnapar' as only Bengalis could. Not for him the clichd overdoing of Os.

Cinematographer Tushar Kanti Ray shoots Calcutta beautifully, even if the production design is more than a tad on the nose, with clusters of framed vintage photographs better suited to the backdrop to tony Bandra eateries trying to appear old-world instead of just a wall in John Biswas' house.

Still, producer Sujoy Ghosh ensures that there is at least an aesthetic in place and the film is competently crafted even if it squanders its narrative potential. Overall, like the Calcutta police station that features a library of audio cassettes full of ransom demands -- a shelf of kidnapper mixtapes, if you will -- TE3N feels like it was put together by people who didn't know where things should go.

Amitabh Bachchan is excellent, no question. Ah, if only his mystery involved an elusive bottle of Isabgol.

Rediff Rating:

Rajeev Masand RajeevMasand

In its preoccupation to collect details, Te3nflounders on motive, says Sukanya Verma.

At what pace a story wants to unravel is entirely the storyteller's prerogative -- some narratives speak in poetic pauses and cryptic musings; others succeed on a throbbing tempo. In Ribhu Dasgupta's Te3n, the leisurely movement isn't so much to examine the scene of a crime as it is to document the accumulation of evidence.

It would be effective too if the film wasn't so willfully minimising its drama and dynamism to conceal the obvious. In its preoccupation to collect details, it flounders on motive. The upshot is regrettably dull, staggeringly questionable and falls short of a satisfying suspense.

I had the same issues with its dreary source, Montage, another South Korean thriller involving an abducted minor following Seven Days (Jazbaa) and The Man From Nowhere (Rocky Handsome), of which Te3n is an official and occasionally superior remake.

The talent involved -- Amitabh Bachchan, Vidya Balan, Nawazuddin Siddiqui -- do their best to elevate what's on paper whilst Dasgupta's opaque play of timelines injects momentary butterflies into the proceedings.

Unlike Te3n producer Sujoy Ghosh's Kahaani, which accesses Kolkata's culture, quirks and flavours to mirror the inner chaos of, and drama surrounding, his leading protagonist, the imagery here, well shot as it may be by Tushar Kanti Ray, replete with mandatory festivals and landmarks, is purely for effect.

Also, there's something unnaturally meticulous about Bachchan's overdesigned abode or the ones he breaks into.

In his tweaked take on the original, Dasgupta throws in some new characters and addresses different repercussions of guilt -- one that afflicts Nawaz so much, he gives up his cop uniform to slip into a clergyman's.

Terrific as he is, he cannot hide his own incredulity over said move and the embarrassment only amplifies every time he's made to crack a stupid joke. But there are moments where Nawaz overcomes the sketchy characterisation -- like that immediate impulse to pull out handcuffs from his uniform's back pocket reveals the police officer never left his subconscious.

As his former colleague, Vidya Balan is in sublime form. There's tremendous objectivity in the manner she approaches her role as a cop in charge of solving a kidnapping case that is suspiciously similar to the one Nawaz handled, nearly a decade ago, while Bachchan's hapless victim endured.

At the centre of this sentimental mystery -- high on loopholes and unusually cooperative kids (considering the circumstances) -- is AB's heartbroken grandfather dedicated to seeking justice for his deceased grandchild.

I didn't instantly warm up to his furiously contorted face and arched posture, too mannered, too mindful. It's only when his quest for the truth intensifies that Bachchan loosens up and provides Te3n its long due breakthrough and the viewer some grasp of his involvement.

Even if it comes at the cost of Dasgupta reducing his co-stars to significant sidekicks, neglecting strained ties with his one-scene son and writing his better half (played by a feeble Padmavati Rao) as an indifferent, unsympathetic woman oblivious to the emotion of loss since the sole purpose is to stress on Bachchan as champion.

That is no suspense. Neither is this movie.

Rediff Rating: