Table No. 21 Movie Review

Table No. 21 starring Paresh Rawal, Rajeev Khandelwal and Tena Desae. The last 30 minutes of this gripping thriller has a life of its own. In fact, the end-game is so stunning and so overpowering in its message, that it makes us overlook the ingrained improbability of the rest of the film.

Echoing films as diverse as Oldboy and Slumdog Millionaire, director Aditya Datt creates a reality game show-revenge saga that gathers some steam in the last act, but by then it's too little, too late. Anyway, the climax followed by sombre facts is well-intentioned but feels entirely unearned.

Rajeev Khandelwal and Tena Desae play a young married couple, Vivaan and Siya, who win a vacation in Fiji in a contest. There, they are drawn into a deadly game called Table No. 21, by a stranger — a Mr Khan, played by Paresh Rawal — who, for reasons never explained, wears a purple waistcoat and a bizarre hair-do that includes one snake-like ripple of hair on his otherwise bald head.

The prize money is Rs. 21 crore, but the questions that Mr Khan asks and the tasks he sets get increasingly personal and deadly. Until it becomes obvious to the couple that they are being played, rather than playing.

Despite starting out curiously enough, the film loses steam early on because of the uninspired writing. The screenplay fails to pack in that edge-of-the-seat tension required for a supposedly urgent thriller of this nature. So even as the couple must confront their fears, reconcile with their past, and question their own love for each other, Datt never really raises the stakes in a way that makes you feel any fear for them.

Some bits in fact, are positively comical, although unintentionally so…like that scene in which an important character is humiliated by having her hair completely shaved. The resulting scene, in which she sports an obviously fake spotless egg-shaped head, will leave you in splits.

"Table No.21? is a surprise. The taut thriller shot on a scenic location constantly keeps a step ahead of the audience. This is an enjoyable and eventually disturbing riches-to-ragging story to start off the year.