Shortkut - The Con Is On

Shortkut starring Akshaye Khanna, Arshad Warsi and Amrita Rao is not what I'd call a bad film. But it is, most certainly a pointless one. It's got a standard storyline and no surprises in its telling. Akshaye Khanna plays an assistant director in the Mumbai film industry who's just finished writing a script he wants to direct himself. His struggling actor roommate, Arshad Warsi steals the script and hands it over to a producer who promptly agrees to make the film and to cast Arshad in the lead. So while Akshaye's dreams of becoming a successful filmmaker are shattered, Arshad turns into an overnight superstar. Over the course of two hours and fifteen minutes, director Neeraj Vora drives home the point that there are no shortcuts in life, only sincerity and hard work ultimately pays. Problem is, the film's so lifeless and boring, you find yourself searching for a shortcut in the cinema that could instantly take you back to the comfort of your home. Remember, this is Neeraj Vora, the dialogue-writer of so many Priyadarshan remakes including Hera Pheri, and yet the comedy in Shortkut is so juvenile, you struggle for a half-decent belly laugh. Before you know it though, this film turns into emotional rona dhona, when domestic differences plague Akshaye and his movie-star wife, played by Amrita Rao. Unable to find its groove in either comedy or drama, this film lumbers along unsteadily with a screenplay that lacks direction. And saddled with such uninspiring material, neither of the actors can muster up anything that even remotely resembles a performance. Shortkut isn't the kind of film that makes you angry. It just leaves you very bored.Director Neeraj Vora's Shortkut is a long, tiresome journey to nowhere.

I will never forgive my mother for making me see this.

The script is stupid. There are glaring loopholes in it. Well, I don't really mind there being loopholes in the film if they director can deflect our attention from it but this movie fails entirely in that.

The ending is ridiculous and makes no sense at all. The filmmakers tried to make a satire-comedy with a message that shortcuts don't work, but failed on all three counts.

The comedy can be best described as a totally unfunny concoction of intentional stupidity, un-subtle and in-your-face, wanna-be witty one- liners that are not witty at all with ridiculous exaggeration.

The satire is too exaggerated to carry any real weight.

Such is the script that performances lose all weight. Akshay Khanna's serious role is weak and made more so by the silly feel the movie has. Arshad Warsi to be fair does what the script tells him too, which might excuse his performance but not the fact that he agreed to do this movie in the first place.

Must-not-watch

Another flop copy of a very good Malyalam movie. Director Priyadarshan started this trend. The reason he succeeds most of the time because he is also the Director for the Malyalam movie. So he knows the emotions for each scene so keeping the Bollywood audience in mind he makes some changes but cuts it pretty close to the original movie. Mr. Neeraj Vora has gained success in the past with Hera Pheri, Bhool Bulaiya etc., all Malyalam movies but there was no evidence of that quality here. Firstly the characters were absolutely wrong. Besides Munnabhai, Arshad Warsi hasn't been able to make any in roads in any other movie. Secondly Akshay Khanna is an actor with limited acting skills. The character in this film required a higher level if not superior skills. Mr. Mohanlal the superstar of Malyalam movie and Srinivasan were superb together. Both the movies were also inspired by the king of comedy Eddie Murphy's "Bowfinger". The dialog writer must take equal blame for this debacle. The dialogs lacked creativity and were bland at best. The characters just sleep walked through all the scenes like zombies. Arshad Warsi tried his best to lift the movie through his now stale comedic style but that just didn't cut the cheese. Songs was nothing much to write home about. My advise, save your money buy yourself a good lunch instead.

Neeraj Vohra after the pathetic PHP comes back with another crap comedy The film is pathetic and doesn't make you laugh mostly barring some few lines which look better in the promo

The film does have a plot but it's handled so badly it makes you cringe Akshaye Khanna needs to get off such messy films and Arshad too needs to try something else Direction is poor Music is bad

Amongst actors Akshaye Khanna is loud at times and good at times, another pathetic role with a bad wig Arshad Warsi overacts badly Amrita Rao tries hard to pass off as a hot babe and fails the rest are nothing great

Seems like Anil Kapoor's attempt in production backfires every time. First it was under-rated "Gandhi My Father" and now "over-rated" Shortkut. Heavily borrowing from Hollywood and Malayalam, Neeraj & Anees Bazmee forgot to give a shoe-shine to the product. Should have learnt an important lesson from their master, Priyadarshan.

For a comedy to succeed, one doesn't need good comic actors. It eventually boils down to the content and timing. Sadly the actors have pushed their limit to the get only the latter right. The screenplay is slow and dialogues painfully stale resulting in a yawn.

Love-track between Akshaye & Amrita starts off on a "Notting Hill" note and ends up "Akele Hum Akele Tum" even before you have settled in. Circuit seems have gone over Arshad Warsi's head and it shows. Chunky Pande was wasted.

It was unwarranted for the plot to move on foreign locales and a tail of producers to go with. And one of the producer was a bad hybrid of Paresh Rawal & Rajpal Yadav. Good Samaritan's were thrown in plenty in addition to coincidences in the plot - cinematic liberties might be an apt word perhaps. Amrita Rao's parents were a straight dig at Ameesha Patel, eh?

Verdict: Poor show... bad conning.