Must watch!A trend has emerged in Bollywood that While the big production houses go for movies with expansive budgets, reputed filmstars and all-too-often cliched screenplays, the less hyped movies, with lesser names come out with engaging plots and storylines. Off the top of my head, I only remember Barfi as the recent movie with a new imaginative plot. But, here comes the first batch of new-year releases from the industry and my word, does it do well with Table 21!
Rajeev Khandelwal plays the character of a middle-class man, out of job, who has just won a lottery to a vacation in Fiji. Along with his gorgeous wife, with whom he is pretty much in love, he embarks on the journey, where he comes face to face with a man, who calls himself Khan. Khan, played by the ever-dynamic Paresh Rawal, offers the duo a chance to win some big money, he offers them a game of 8 questions, worth 21 crores in total. The catch? You lie, you die!
This is a well-meaning film. It even has a relevant social message appended to its ending. Unfortunately, along the way, it yo-yos wildly between semblances of profundity and dashes of pulp.
An out of work 30-year-old, Vivaan(Rajeev Khandelwal), and his wife of five years, Siya(Tena Desae), win an all-expenses paid trip to salubrious Fiji.
After a de rigueur romp on the beach that allows the lady to get into a skimpy bikini, the young couple is ferried on a seaplane to a resort where the owner Khan(Paresh Rawal) offers them a bottle of Dom Perignon and a chance to win 10 million Fijian dollars(Rs 21 crore) if they participate in a live online game show.
Shot in virgin locales in and around Suva, Table No 21 is expertly shot and edited. It gathers momentum after the stage is set over the first few sequences.
The screenplay is the film’s undoing: Table No 21 never acquires the desperate spine-chilling edge that a cat and mouse game of life and death should necessarily have had.
The drama is woven around a welter of lies, betrayal and brutality. The lead pair is trapped in a web that is as much of their own making as it is of the man who manipulates them like a master puppeteer. But rarely does this dark thriller hit home with sufficient force.
The most disappointing aspect of Table No 21 is the performance by Paresh Rawal. Not that he pushes the wrong buttons. Far from it. But when an actor of his quality is reduced to relying primarily on his stylist for impact, you know something isn’t quite right.
The role has a been-there-done-that feel and Rawal runs ragged as he struggles to rise above the limitations inherent in the way the character has been conceived. It is only in the climax that he comes into his own.
Tena Desae, pleasant enough as eye-candy, gives her sketchy role a fair shot. It isn’t her fault that she can only be the icing on a cake that is clearly half-baked.
In short, it’s a terrific movie, with great characters, a gripping story, convoluted plot and great adrenaline rush at times. Go watch this one, if you are sick and tired of the good old Bollywood. It’s a rare gem.