Thodi Life Thoda Magic - Movie Review

Director: Anand Rai
Cast: Jackie Shroff, Meera Vasudevan, Sahil Chadha
Rating:  
Thodi Life Thoda Magic is not a bad film. It’s a boring film. And a boring film can be much more taxing than a bad film. One wonders why anybody would be inclined to invest in an endeavor where you can’t afford to invest ten minutes of your attention.

The direction is so lousy and vague that every scene from the film fails to convey what it is supposed to. Naina (Meera Vasudevan) seems to have a strained relationship with a satellite channel head Roshan (Arbaaz Khan) for reasons unknown. Naina teams up with Siddharth (Sahil Chadha) for a television show which is a documentary on Mumbai or a talk show or a reality show or a news-based show or god knows what. They need an anchor for their show and are strangely hell-bent to hire a random street wanderer MK (Jackie Shroff).

MK plays an agony uncle on the show solving individual issues in the most implausible manner. Before you realize he is the hero of the town. Intermittently there are flashback shots of weird war scenes, a Sonu Nigam sad number keeps popping up in installments and on an unintentionally funny note a carpenter croons on the tragedy of life. Thodi Life Bahut Tragic...

Naina and Siddharth start feeling that the fame of MK is being exploited. That’s what you assume because it’s practically impossible to apprehend the emotions expressed through the dull direction. But MK seems to be indifferent to his misuse. Also he seems to be suffering from some sickness which, again, remains unstated. Until you realize he was a mental asylum inhabitant. The moral of the story is that a mentally unstable person can bring in change in the lives of many. At least it changed mine. I have developed disgust towards sane people who churn out inane films like these.

The film is awfully edited with scenes lacking continuity. Also at times the sequencing of scenes is non-chronological adding to your trauma. You never understand where the flashback ends and the present comes into picture. Most of the scenes have no relevance until the screenplay reaches a point of redundancy. Picture this scene where cricket commentator Harsha Bhogle suddenly arrives onscreen and distributes cricket bats to street kids who smash his car’s windscreen with their ball.

Thematically the film is faintly reminiscent of Frank Capra’s Meet John Doe (remade in Hindi as Main Azaad Hoon starring Amitabh Bachchan) where an ordinary man is exploited by big-shots of media. But director Anand Rai fails to connect with the audience throughout the film. He is unsuccessful in establishing the concerns of Naina, the commercial considerations of Roshan, the helplessness of Siddharth or the psyche of MK.

Meera Vasudevan subjects the viewer to as much traumatic tears as much as she sobs through the film. And the only attribute you notice about Jackie Shroff is his unkempt look.

This lifeless ordeal is totally tragic.