Wah Taj Movie Review: Tedious Tamasha

Once in a while, you come across a movie, which had potential but was marred by shoddy execution and amateurish writing and Wah Taj, which releases this week, falls firmly in that category.

Starring Shreyas Talpade and Manjari Fadnis, Wah Taj is a satire about a Maharashtrian farmer named Tukaram Raosaheb Marathe (Talpade), who lands up at the Taj Mahal with his family one fine day and claims that the land on which it has been built belongs to his ancestors and demands that it be handed over to him for farming.

Needless to say, this causes a furore with everyone from politicians to cops to social workers to media-persons trying to use this opportunity for their benefit. The matter goes to court and what happens next, forms the rest of the plot.

Shreyas Talpade is a talented actor for sure, but he is unable to impress us in this film courtesy his caricaturish character and lame dialogues and the same goes for Manjari Fadnis. The rest of the cast comprising actors like Hemant Pandey, Rajesh Sharma and Rakesh Shrivastav, have hammed it like nobody's business, causing a great deal of unintentional laughter.

As for the film itself, though the initial 15 minutes seemed promising and hinted at an enjoyable satire, Wah Taj starts going downhill with predictable consistency. The dialogues are lame, the performances are over the top, the music is forgettable and the situations are so poorly written that the film comes across as a farce created without much application of mind.

In order to cover all bases in their attempt to reach out to the common man, the makers have also inserted a 'Bhaiyya versus Ghaati' argument to drive the point home that we all are Indians first. Then there is a sequence with the humble farmer versus corrupt industrialist angle, a solid favourite with filmmakers since the 50s.

To add insult to injury, there is so much pompous preaching happening throughout the film that even your unintentional laughter will be tinged with regret for deciding to catch this flick.

In conclusion, if you value your sanity, giving this film a miss would be a monumental idea…