Cast: Nana Patekar, Tabu, Milind Soman, Ashutosh Rana, Shilpa Shetty, and Aditya Panscholi
Director: Esmayeel Shroff
Fultoos Rating: 2/5

Ever heard of a spider getting entangled in its own web. Well that's precisely what happened to Esmayeel Shroff when he was making Tarkieb. And no prizes for guessing what Tarkieb he uses to come out of that entanglement- cut the web.

The absolutely insane anticlimax of the movie leaves you with so much disgust that you feel like tearing up the seat on which you sat all till the end to suffer from this incongruous and crassly insipid climax of the murder mystery. The director could have found out at least millions of better reasons and ways for the murder and uncovering the mystery but alas, all for this Tarkieb.

The story starts with a lot of thrill and chill to build up a befitting platform for an intricate murder mystery. A chopped human body is found in a lake which god knows why (this only) and how catches the eye of the diehard white sari clan feminists who spew out a highly charged up verbal gobbledygook on to the minister causing a change of heart of the minister. The minister orders a CBI inquiry calling in Jasraj Patel (Nana Patekar) to carry out investigations (or only interrogation in the name of investigation) it is found out that the decapitated body is of a nurse of military hospital, Roshni (Tabu) on whom apparently everyone had a lustful eye.

Roshni is in love with Dr. captain Ajit Verma (Milind Soman). And to the shock of the captain and yours as well, our goodly Roshni asks him to marry her sister, appealing for the quintessential element of love, sacrifice at the altar of the family well-being. Oh what a fuss! But for one simple clarification from Roshni, we would have been saved from this ordeal. (Well, we seldom have the lady luck shining on us) Ajit gainsays this offer (and rightly so) and Roshni declares goodbye to him on this account. And rest is all for you to watch, if you dare to.

Almost all other characters come under suspicion of Jasraj Patel (after all it's a murder mystery) who finally, not so much on his investigational capacity but by the grace of Esmayeel Shroff, traces the actual murderer, only to your utter disgust. By the grace of Mr. Shroff I mean, in a hopelessly incredible coincidence, the grocer (Raghuveer Yadav) god knows from where pulls out a camera to capture the body disposing act of the murderer which unfolds the mystery!!!. Any takers??? You need not be a CBI Asst. Director to spot the murderer if you have some good clear pictures of the murderer.

Anything that brings some respite to you is a sterling performance by Nana Patekar as the ruthless Asst. Director of the CBI. His immaculate dialogue delivery leaves you spell bound. And rest all of them including Tabu, were nothing more than ordinary. Shilpa Shetty was used more for pelvic gyrations than anything else, which has now become her mainstay. Milind Soman was just about fair. The terror symbol of bollywood, Ashutosh Rana was as meek as lazy pudding and so was Aditya Panscholi as the rich businessman from Bhopal. Frankly both of them did not have enough scope to show their mettle. The atrocious (anti)climax of the movie finally leaves you so disappointed that you start looking for a Tarkieb to forget this movie even for whatever good it was.

A liberal rating: **

Back to the Archives of Hindi Reviews