O TERI
Reel Life Production Pvt. Ltd.’s O Teri (UA) is the story of two bumbling television news reporters whose boss is constantly asking them to bring sensational stories. They mess up things each time but finally, one day, become national heroes.
Prantabh Pratap alias PP (Pulkit Samrat) and Anand Ishwaram Devdutt Subramaniam alias AIDS (Bilal Amrohi) are bosom pals working for a television news channel. Their boss is Monsoon (Sara Jane Dias) and she is constantly chiding them for not doing their job properly. She expects them to get sensational stories for the channel but to their bad luck, they never succeed.
One day, CBI officer Avinash Tripathi (Kuldeep Sarin) is murdered. Ruling party member Bilal Khwaja (Anupam Kher) and opposition minister Bhanwar Singh Kilol (Vijay Raaz) are both responsible for the murder. It is Kilol’s plan to have Khwaja accused of the murder because Khwaja is chairman of the Asian Olympic Games, irregularities in which were being probed by Tripathi. But Khwaja proves lucky when the murder is passed off as a hit-and-run accident. Kilol gets the dead body removed from the morgue as he wants to prove Khwaja guilty of murder by showing bullet wounds on the dead body. However, Kilol’s men dump the corpse in the car of PP and AIDS when the police start chasing them. PP and AIDS are scared to death when they see a dead body in their car as they feel, they could be accused of murdering a man whom they don’t even know. Once they learn that the dead body is that of CBI officer Avinash Tripathi, they decide to impress Monsoon with the sensational story. They reach their office with the dead body but by the time they bring Monsoon to the car, the dead body has disappeared. PP and AIDS are sacked from their jobs.
One day, PP and AIDS happen to be on a foot overbridge when it collapses. AIDS shoots the footage of the overbridge coming down and the two take the video recording to Monsoon in a bid to get reinstated. But the recording is so poor that they are asked to leave. However, they luckily learn from the recorded footage that Avinash Tripathi’s body is buried under the bridge. They retrieve the dead body and check into a hotel room in which they see minister Kilol and his boyfriend, Motwani (Ishtiyaq Ahmed), making out. They record the gay relationship on video.
Here, minister Khwaja’s papers, favouring Nahata (Murali Sharma) for contracts granted, are somehow leaked to the media. An angry Khwaja blames the secretary (Denzel Smith) for the same and slaps him at a party. The secretary now swears revenge and promises to give more proof of Khwaja’s wrong-doings in the form of tapped telephone conversations, on CD to Kilol. However, that CD erroneously reaches PP and AIDS. The dead body, meanwhile, has run its course, and been taken away by the police from PP and AIDS and, thereafter, has reached Khwaja. As bad luck would have it, the CD is in PP’s car when it is blown up to smithereens. So what do PP and AIDS do? How are they able to expose Khwaja, Nahata, Kilol and the rest of the gang after all the proofs they had are destroyed?
Umesh Bist and Neeti Palta’s story is ridiculous, to say the least. The film reminds of Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro. The writing duo’s screenplay (with additional screenplay by Atul Agnihotri) is equally ridiculous and also silly and childish. The bumbling team of PP and AIDS is hardly funny although the intention is to make the viewers laugh at their forgetful and clumsy ways. Their behaviour is predictable and looks designed to make them fail in each endeavour. Frankly, not just PP and AIDS but even the other characters like Khwaja, Nahata and Kilol are so careless in what they do or get done that nothing makes sense – because every example of carelessness and callousness looks contrived. For instance, Nahata is given the task of burying the dead body of Avinash Tripathi, which he does so half-heartedly that the body is found in no time – and this, in spite of the fact that it was imperative that the body never be found again. Very early on in the drama, the audience gets the feeling that the story is being stretched mindlessly to simply create humour which, unfortunately, is just not created.
There are so many twists and turns in the drama – and one worse than the other – that the viewers lose track of what’s happening and why and at whose behest. The audience’s sympathy never really goes out to PP and AIDS because their behaviour is outright stupid and the viewers, therefore, feel that they deserve what’s happening to them.
The climax is devoid of novelty as one has seen similar climaxes in earlier films. In short, the drama leaves the viewers thoroughly bored and unconcerned. Dialogues, penned by Umesh Bist and Neeti Palta, with additional dialogues by Atul Agnihotri, are too ordinary to be true. The only dialogues which evoke laughter are those mouthed by Kilol.
Pulkit Samrat looks handsome but is very average as far as his acting is concerned. His dances are graceful. Bilal Amrohi makes an ordinary debut. He looks so-so but his acting is reasonably good and his dances, quite nice. Sarah Jane Dias is quite impressive. Anupam Kher does a fair job. Vijay Raaz is extremely nice. Mandira Bedi looks glamorous and stands her own. Her costumes are eye-catching. Murali Sharma is okay. Mohan Kapur is completely wasted in an inconsequential role. Manoj Pahwa tries to evoke laughter without much success. Razak Khan is sincere but again, is unable to raise laughter. Himani Shivpuri is as usual. Ishtiyaq Ahmed is alright as Kilol’s gay partner, Motwani. Govind Pandey (as Kilol’s assistant, Supariya) and Denzel Smith (as the secretary) are okay. Shrikant is good as the pandit. Supriya Shukla’s acting in a cameo appearance raises some laughter. Iulia Vantur looks sexy in a song-dance. Salman Khan adds star value in a song-dance.
Umesh Bist’s direction is quite dull as he is unable to create the humour that was meant to be. G.J. Singh, Hard Kaur and Rajiv Bhalla’s music is ave¬rage. The ‘Akhan vich’, ‘Butt patlo’ and ‘O teri’ songs are the better of the lot. Lyrics (Kumaar, Abhinav Chaturvedi, Akshay K. Saxena and Manish J. Tipu) are nothing to shout about. Song picturisations (by choreographers Remo D’souza, Rajeev Surti and Mudassar Khan and song director Sumit Dutt (for ‘Phollo karta’)) are quite nice. G.J. Singh’s background music is routine. Ganesh Rajavelu’s cinematography is okay. Action scenes, by Pradyumna Kumar Swain and Anbariv, are functional. Sets (by Shailesh Mahadik) are okay. Devendra Murdeshwar’s editing is not very crisp.
On the whole, O Teri is a tedious comedy which bores instead of entertaining. With not much support from music or face value, the film will go as it has come – unnoticed and unsung. Disaster!