Cutting Corners

 

 

The tagline ‘the con is on’ initially seemed appealing as it reminds you of “Bowfinger” (had the same tagline), a Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy starrer, which while not being a masterpiece was hysterically funny. This one also features a film director and an actor but is nowhere near as funny because as is the norm with most comedies here, the writing shows appalling lack of depth and freshness and even with Arshad Warsi and Akshaye Khanna around, there is no rescuing the doomed film. Raju (Arshad Warsi), a struggling actor steals a script from budding director Shekhar (Akshaye Khanna) with the help from a washed out star played by Chunky Pandey (pretty over the top) and decides to make a film out of it. And as the tagline says – the con is on. If you gave any credit to Neeraj Vora, the director, for his attempt at “Phir Hera Pheri”, then take it all away because the predictability of “Shortkut” both in the writing and the direction kills it in entirety. It’s a shame that an actor like Arshad Warsi is reduced to delivering hammed lines, Amrita Rao only serves as eye candy and Akshaye Khanna is wasted in the role. ‘Dramedy’ has become an overused term in Hollywood, and in a queer sort of way, you could classify this film as one, but only because it can’t seem to decide which one it wants to be. Sure, it doesn’t sink to the depths of “Kambakkht Ishq”. But then, given the starcast and the director, expectations certainly would be benchmarked higher.