If you can get over the ludicrousness of a distinguished mathematician, whose god is Albert Einstein and who at the end of the film gets the ‘Isaac Newton Award’ for excellence in his field, masquerading as a seedy gambler, then ‘Teen Patti’ is a surprisingly skilful and audaciously complex piece of drama.
It is a tautly-scripted and brilliantly executed film on the deep-rooted link between financial ambitions and moral compromises.
Writer-director Leena Yadav gives the theme of monetary indulgence a dizzying but pinned-down spin. She speeds confidently across out-of-control lives on a college campus with the confident vision of raconteur who spins a seemingly indecipherable web of deceit, intrigue and crime.
Miraculously, Yadav’s yarn preserves its pencil-sharp edge of intrigue and wit right to the end. The story of the eccentric math-magician’s adventures takes the narrative from underground addas to high-class casinos where Professor Venkat Subramaniam, his junior colleague Madhavan and four students convert the professor’s newly-discovered mathematical theory into hard cash on gambling tables.
The plot reveals layer after layer of conspiracy until we come to the core idea.
The story unravels through an extended dialogue in Cambridge between Subramaniam and a British maths professor Perci Trachtenberg played by Bachchan and Sir Ben. Just watching the two distinguished baritones exchange notes on academia, life and their overlapping quirks is a pleasure that makes for full paisa-vasool viewing. Read more….
