CAST: Mithilesh Singh, Muzahid Khan, Zafar Sheikh, Javed

Hyder, Zoya Khan, Sunil Pal

DIRECTION: Ejaz Ahmed

GENRE: Comedy

DURATION: 1 hour 32 minutes

STORY

Bogged down by poverty, unemployment and an increasingly corrupt system, four friends take things into their own hands and plan a daring heist to tackle black money.

REVIEW

The plot of Life Ki Aisi Ki Taisi is not at all unique. It’s a heist film where underdogs take revenge on the powerful and get into rather sticky situations while doing so. Here, talented but unemployed friends Vilas (Muzahid Khan), Gopal (Mithilesh Singh), Sidhu (Zafar Sheikh) and Chakachak (Javed Hyder), are affected by the increasing corruption and black money in the country. So, when they find out that a top politician is moving his ill-gotten cash to a bank, they decide to relieve him of it. For such films to work, you need strong performances and tight writing, which makes them stand apart. But here, both are sorely missing. The dialogues, no doubt, show some spark and are socially relevant at times. Yet, the mediocre acting by all involved make the film tedious. There is also no real chemistry between the four actors in both comedic and emotional moments.

For a low budget movie, it’s interesting the way that the filmmakers have made use of the resources. A major chunk of the film is shot in a bank, which seems to help save production costs. That portion could have been interesting had the makers chosen to write interesting characters of the bank customers who are taken as hostage by the four.

Instead, they rely on the insipid, juvenile antics of Sunil Pal as a lustful bank manager which is definitely the weakest point of the film along with its badly mixed title track. The conflict in the film is resolved in such an overly simple manner and you feel that no one was ever in any real danger in the first place.

In times when big budget behemoths rule the screens, it would have been interesting to see a small budget, dark comedy work. But Life Ki Aisi Ki Taisi does not pack enough of a punch to stand on its own.