Hindi Film review
Johnson Thomas
Not a winner, by half!
Film: Jackpot
Cast: Sunny Leone,
Sachin Joshi, Naseeruddin Shah
Director: Kaizad Gustad
Rating: * *
This is Sachin Joshi’s
third attempt at becoming a star and it’s as unrealistically driven as his
earlier two ventures. Director, Kaizad Gustad, infamous for the ‘Mumbai central’
incident and famous for his second film the Jackie and Ayesha Shroff produced ‘Boom’
which had then freshers Katrina Kaif and Padma Lakshmi displaying their booty
with delicious candor, helms this one too. In ‘Boom’ he had Amitabh Bachchan do
a whacky turn while in this one he’s got
Naseeruddin Shah attempting to break stereotype. ‘Boom’ was ushered out of the theatres even
before it’s first week run was completed. But the effect on it’s two heroines
was entirely different. Today Katrina Kaif
and Padma lakshmi are well-known stars in their own right. So I guess Sunny Leone,
without expecting much from the film itself, is hoping that Kaizad’s luck with
his heroines will rub off on her too.
Sunny Leone being Sunny
Leone, she has to be scantily clad for several sequences- and that goes without
saying. After all it’s a romantic thriller and romance for Sachin Joshi here is
all about singing sensuous numbers and performing erotic love scenes with the
next big sex goddess of Bollywood.
‘Jackpot,’ set entirely in Goa,
has a backdrop of sun, sand and casino boats and is meant to be a fast-paced
thriller con. But the pace is not smooth it’s jumpy and the characterizations are
erratic. The film has it’s brief moments
of comedy with crazy characters to give
the few zany one liners some substance.
Jackpot is the name of a famous
boat casino, open 24x7. The narrative goes back and forth in time delineating a
card game between the lead players in a con. But the players they are trying to
con are much smarter and pull a fast one on them. The loss of face leads to trust
issues and each one begins suspecting the other of doing them in. A beautiful woman, Maya(Sunny Leone) with a gun, a brief case full of moolah and her
romance with Francis(Sachin Joshi) add
further intrigue. The casino owner Boss Man(Naseeruddin Shah) is a crazy
eccentric who also appears to be bowled
over by Maya, is also in the thick of things.
Despite the herculean attempt to
make things spicy and interesting, the thrill factor is totally missing. Sunny
Leone can look the part of a beautiful sensuous woman quite adequately but
convincing us of her acting chops, is another matter. Her expressions are a little
too hard and appear vacant and fleeting. It’s clear from her past and present ‘Jism’
experience that empathizing with a character is downright difficult for her. Naseeruddin
Shah, comes across as competent but the cruddy half baked character assigned to
him, doesn’t do him any justice. Daniel Weber, Sunny’s husband, does a surprise
cameo in the film. The music of the film is decent enough. Toshi and Sharib do
well to lend sensuality and heart to the romantic numbers. The cinematography
is also quite eye-pleasing. The plotting and the character machinations though,
appear a little too ham-handed to curry favor. If you are looking to this
misadventure only to salivate over Sunny Leone’s considerable assets , then you
may not be disappointed. Otherwise just stay away!
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