E Niwas's De Taali

Cast: Aftab Shivdasani, Riteish Deshmukh, Rimi Sen, Ayesha Takia

Director: E Niwas

Shopping Corner:

Mayank Shekhar, Film Critic

E Niwas's De Taali, can barely be reviewed. It seems at first a Dil Chahta Hai sort of urban, breezy romantic comedy.

Aftab Shivdasani is the richer, super-sentimental version of Archie Andrews. He has a closed circle of two childhood friends. A sweet, tomboyish Ayesha Takia. A Jughead sort of best friend, that's Ritesh Deshmukh. There's then the hottie Veronica that's Rimi Sen, who's after our Archie's money.

We don't know where these friends live. It looks like somewhere between Singapore, Bangkok and Bombay. We also don't know how old they are.

They have a personal tree-house with dumb graffiti. Only the three hug-happy buddies are allowed into this tree-house. Still, so far so ok.

Everything merely goes berserk only in the latter half, really. The filmmaker spends quarter of the film justifying and justifying some more the greedy, bitchy Rimi Sen's character.

The romantic comedy also goes completely elsewhere into a comedy about a hostage drama gone wrong; the sorts of Darwaza Bandh Rakho or Love Ke Liye Kuch Bhi Karega.

I have a feeling the writers were quite excited about this movie to begin with. But at some point, either the devils of fiction took over or, they just left the remaining sheets of the screenplay completely blank.

The film's crew could do whatever they wanted to. Anything begins to happen. And none of it is even half funny.

I don't feel sorry for the director E Niwas. His last two films are called My Name Is Anthony Gonsalves and Bardaasht. But I do feel sorry for the lead actors here, Ritesh, Ayesha Takia and Aftab. They seem in top perform.

Rarely do you find performers so incredibly comfortable with comic timing on screen. While I am feeling sorry for them, you can feel sorry for me too. I had to sit through this. You may not have to.

Courtesy: ndtv.com