New York Times Review - Rachel Salz
When Amitabh Bachchan, Bollywood’s perennial Mr. Big, gets a meaty role, he digs into it with such gusto that everyone around him starts to look a bit underfed.
In “Teen Patti” Mr. Bachchan has a grand time playing Venkat, an underappreciated math professor in Mumbai whose probability studies lead him to a gambler’s dream: winning at will in a game of chance, here the Indian card game teen patti.
Venkat is a purist, satisfied with cracking the code, but his students persuade him to put his theory to the test. Surprise: winning oodles of cash leads to disharmony, blackmail and worse.
The director of “Teen Patti,” Leena Yadav, can’t quite control Mr. Bachchan, which is good. Though he occasionally looks tired, his scenery chewing provides the movie with some of the heat that its card games fail to generate.
But Ms. Yadav, attempting something more than a typical Hindi movie, can’t quite control her story either. The students are broadly sketched (greed is their dominant trait) or one-note, making the revelations at the end dead on arrival.
And like many artists drawn to gambling themes, she can’t resist clunky philosophizing about life, chance and certainty. She even brings in Ben Kingsley, playing a magician and mathematician (they’re the same, he says), to give voice to some of her profundities.
Content aside, Mr. Kingsley and Mr. Bachchan’s scenes together have real charm. They’re like two old pros from different leagues tossing a ball around: loose, smooth, in no doubt of their power.
Taking a Gamble
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