'Cheat India' merely robs audiences off their precious time....
Why Cheat India can't decide if Rocky is a hero or villain. I don't have a problem with that. What's harder to take is the inconsistent tonality and the convoluted second act. Every time you think the film has reached a climax, Soumik tacks on another end. Because Why Cheat India wants to both celebrate and punish Rocky. But that, like the hybrid of fact and fiction, needed far more imagination and audacity.But Why Cheat India is disjointed and disappointing, never quite knowing which side it is on, even as it spends time showing us how good students can be ruined by greed, and how parents can put killing pressure on their children in their struggle to break the vicious gap between present debt and potential income.
Why Cheat India is a low-key drama that might not meet the expectations of the constituency that swears by a Rohit Shetty. What it does, and does reasonably well, is address a subject that is real in a manner that, despite its adherence to many of the broad rules of popular Hindi cinema, does not stray too far from the tangible.
The story and concept of Why Cheat India holds a lot of merit, and if the execution was the sharper and steadier, this one had the potential to graduate to another level. Even with the flaws in the story, the film and its various subjects have enough at hand to keep you entertained.
'Greed is good,' Hashmi spits the line from Oliver Stone's classic Wall Street, missing the point of how that film applauded the smoothness of the operator. Why Cheat India moralises without taking a stand. The film has three endings, indecisively shown one after the other - one of which uses a refrain to Hum Honge Kamyaab as an afterthought, pasting it on immediately after another song, diluting any potential impact. This movie doesn't appreciate trick or trickster. It takes craft to be crafty.
The film has its heart in the right place. It mirrors the ills in the education system, putting everything under the microscope. From plain copying to getting 'dummies' to write papers for wealthy brats, you get a ringside view of the paisa phenko, tamasha dekho (throw money and watch the show) syndrome. However, it's never enough for a film to just have good intention. The makers should have definitely paid more attention to the execution. Here was a golden opportunity to give us a movie that would jab us in the jaw. Instead, it falls flat.
score 4/10
fillerruth 18 January 2019
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw4590059/35709
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