Short Kut

Genre: Drama

Cast: Akshaye Khanna, Arshad Warsi, Amrita Rao, Chunky Pandey, Ali Asgar, Haider Ali and Siddharth Randeria

Director: Neeraj Vora

Being screened at theatres near you

KATHMANDU: Everybody loves a multi-cuisine meal, but if the dishes are not cooked properly, it becomes a mess. This is the problem with Short Kut; the movie has both comedy as well as romance-drama, but director Neeraj Vora serves both half-cooked.

Shekhar (Akshaye Khanna) is a very talented guy who has been working as an assistant director for 12 years in Bollywood. He has finished his first script and is ready to become a director, while Raju (Arshad Warsi), a good for nothing junior artist, dreams of being a superstar. These two people have two different theories in life — Shekhar believes that there is no shortcut to success and Raju is always in the lookout for the shortcuts.

And Raju becomes a superstar but by stealing Shekhar’s script ruining Shekhar’s dream of making his own movie.

Mansi (Amrita Rao) is a top actress who is in love with Shekhar and wants to settle down with him. Their marriage brings more frustration in Shekhar’s life as everyone starts taunting him for being a superstar’s unemployed husband. This starts creating problems in their relationship and finally Mansi leaves him. But when Shekhar feels like everything is over, he gets a chance to direct a movie. And the hero of the movie is none other than his biggest enemy Raju.

Though Vora has been much appreciated as a comedy actor, he fails as a director. The scenes, which are supposed to be funny, falls flat as they are loud and irritating. Warsi, who made everyone laugh as Circuit, is a major let down. All he does is talk in a loud voice and some of his acts are repetitive.

Khanna’s performance is satisfactory, while Rao is more of just a glam doll and has very little to do. However, her performance — in whatever scene she has — is praiseworthy. Other supporting characters used for comedy are also not effective at all.

The screenplay is the biggest problem of Short Kut. Writer Anees Bazmee is not able to keep the flow of two parallel stories — the rivalry between Shekhar and Raju and the love story of Shekhar and Mansi. This makes the movie a boring in-between the two genres.

It is the dialogue that enhances a funny scene and Short Kut fails in this department as well. While some of the jokes are rather stale, others are very predictable.

There is nothing noteworthy in Shankhar-Ehsaan-Loy’s music and frankly speaking all the songs have been inserted in the movie awkwardly.

One wonders how could a brilliant actor like Anil Kapoor produce such a forgettable movie like Short Kut?