Shart - The Challenge Review

Tusshar Kapoor should stop trying. Really. Watching him work his way around an expression is so appallingly lame, you will pay good money just to have it stop. One of the reasons Shart runs on for longer than it should is because all the other actors - and we use the term loosely here - have to stand around and wait for Tusshar's face to catch up with the plot. Not that the plot is much help.

Like most every other hero in the movies these days, Karan is the creative director of an ad agency. A remake of the Telugu Badri, this film one also features Pawan Kalyan and Amisha Patel, but only in one weirdass song involving the Wild West, banditos and an X-rated lasso scene. This song is one of the many fascinating videos shot by the talented creative director Karan, whose other skills include being able to fall asleep with his eyes open and dancing in a manner that should convince you of the theory of evolution (and the fact that, in some cases, the process is, as Saki put it, far from complete).

Karan, through some freak of nature, has a girlfriend, Sonam. So we have Gracy Singh playing cute, again. But she's Meryl Streep compared to the rest of the cast. Sonam and Karan are so in love that when, for a laugh, she asks him to fool around with another girl, win her heart and then dump her, he agrees. This is because Karan can never refuse a challenge. Now you understand the multi-layered implications of that title, although it's still not clear why you decided to watch a movie with Tusshar Kapoor, Gracy Singh and Amrita Arora in it.

Amrita Arora plays the other girl, Saryu. Like all sweet, innocent girls she has a rabid bullmastiff for a brother. After she falls in love with Karan - and who can resist all that cross-eyed charm - Saryu's brother pays a friendly visit to Karan. But can our hero be intimidated by such crude tactics? Never! He will fight till the very end to win Saryu's hand. His honor-bound manhood won't allow him any peace till he punches his way through all the obstacles to their love. Then and only then will he ditch her like a hot brick. A man has his principles.

At this point, Sonam, who was snoozing in the sidelines, wakes up and tells him to forget everything, the deal's off. But now, Karan is in love and there's no going back. But the script is so cunningly inane, there's also no going forward.

So there you are - stuck between one god-awful twist and another. There are tears, recriminations, resounding slaps and the ultimate sacrifice. But never mind what went on behind the scenes. It's what oozes through that will nail the coffin on three hours of your life.