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Tathastu : Review
12th May 2006 22.20 IST
By Aparajita Ghosh

Tathastu is a hard-boiled story that questions the morality and the ethics of a society which has a gaping divide between the haves and have-nots. Sadly, the movie fails to make any impact because of poor writing and direction.

Sanjay Dutt plays the leading role in the film. Amisha Patel plays his wife, and master Yash Pathak, his son. Other actors in the movie are Jaya Prada , Manoj Pahwa , Gulshan Grover and Asrani.

The film tells the story of a middle-class man who takes law into his hands in order to save the life of his ailing son.

Sanjay Dutt plays Ravi, who works in an automobile factory for a meager salary. He is married to Sarita (Amisha Patel) and has an eight-year-old son Gaurav (Yash Pathak).

Ravi's world comes crashing down after his son collapses while playing cricket. Doctors diagnose a hole in the little boy's heart and suggest a heart transplant surgery.

A heart transplant needs lakhs of rupees. Ravi tries to raise the money by asking for help from his factory and the insurance company. But the loan his factory can lend him is much less than the needed amount. The insurance company, on the other hand, simply turns him away because his son's insurance policy has expired.

In the meantime, the little boy's condition worsens as he stops responding to the medication. Ravi's wife begins to lose hope. She beseeches him to do something fast to save their son's life. Ravi decides to take an extreme step.

He points a gun at the doctor, and takes all the people in the waiting room hostage. His demand is clear : his son should undergo a heart transplant operation or else he won't set any hostage free.

Besides telling the story of a hapless, helpless father, 'Tathastu' also takes a dig at the political system, and shows how some influential people can bend rules and pull the strings to their own benefit. But at the end of the day, it becomes a tad cynical.

There is a big question mark whether the film's director Anubhav Sinha should be given any credit for whatever little interest the movie manages to create and whatever little message it holds out. For, the film is a remake (read copy) of the Hollywood flick 'John Q' that starred Denzel Washington. Those who have seen the original movie will be stunned by the remarkable similarities between the two films. Not only are the basic plot and its characters similar, even some dialogues are literal translation of the ones in 'John Q'. Being inspired by a Hollywood movie doesn't mean that one can evade creativity and originality.

Sanjay Dutt manages to emote the emotional part well enough. But when he wields the gun, he acquires the swagger of the bhai he has played many a time. Amisha Patel fails to do justice to her role. There is hardly any inner emotion behind the outer expressions of the frayed and suffering mother she plays.

On the sidelines, Gulshan Grover and Manoj Pahwa play their parts adequately.

In short, watching 'Tathastu' is not even a good timepass. The movie is dogged with shoddy writing (Yash-Vinay) and poor direction. In the end, the movie becomes too caustic and cynical.

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Tathastu
Sanjay Dutt
Amisha Patel
Gulshan Grover
Anubhav Sinha