Tera Intezaar Review - The Title Alludes To The Director Calling Out To The Plot Of His 'Film&#3

If we were critiquing films on their watchability, Tera Intezaar would get a 5 star rating. This is one of those ethereal films that will stand the test of time. It is the Sholay of 2017 and dare I say, the Mr. India- No. I can’t do this. Watching Arbaaz Khan and Sunny Leone strut around in oddly colored clothes, drown in cheap VFX and say lines like, “Jo bhi meri khwabon mein aayi thi, maine uski hi tasveer banayi hain.” have pleasures of their own (drunken pleasures, with friends who’ll make you laugh till your insides hurt at the absurdity of this project). Still, Tera Intezaar isn’t entirely unwatchable (like Mastizaade, Ek Paheli Leela etc.) but it sets a new standard of low for Khan.

The director of the oddly received but blockbuster success, Dabbang 2, Khan has not really found his stride since then. Now, in Tera Intezaar, he plays an artist, Veer, who is clearly god’s gift to this earth (this guy could give Van Gogh a run for his money). This part of the story is very tacky, mainly because director Rajeev Walia doesn’t have the money or resources to pull off something on such a large scale (so the paintings in Veer’s house look like Walia has taken real photos and used a PICTURE-TO-PAINTING app to process them). Veer loves to draw paintings, and he draws one of his perfect woman, who he meets at her art gallery, Rounak (Sunny Leone).

What’s sad is that Tera Intezaar had potential, to an extent. Taking a persona like Sunny Leone and not making her an object for the viewer’s pleasure hadn’t been done in any one of the projects/item numbers that Leone has been a part of. But, Walia, to an extent, does go back on his promises of showing ‘a new side of Leone’, and puts in item numbers (Sexy Barbie Girl ?) and topless shots, exploiting her for her sexuality. As the film progresses, it gets more misogynistic and then even more absurd. Somewhere in the mix is Sudha Chandran, playing a devilish witch-like creature who can ‘tell things about people that other people can’t’ (this wasn’t my awfully worded line, this was actually in the film.)

Rajeev has very little, but what he does have, he ruins. With such a low budget, using so little money and relying on VFX so heavily to make your film work, isn’t artistically silly, but rather in a practical sense. Walia should’ve made a crisp, one and a half hour watch about Rounak’s search for Veer, who goes missing one day. But, he makes absurd scenes, where three people run from flying mangoes, a painting paints itself and kills the girl it has painted and Veer watches this all vengefully. The film sets new lows in a sense, with awful VFX and comically written Hinglish dialogues, it reminded me of those YouTube productions that you can watch with friends for a night of laughter.

Even though I’m afraid to admit it, a part of me loved Tera Intezaar. I was with friends in the theatre, who constantly made me laugh throughout its flaws and absurdity, making the whole experience much more pleasurable. I’m not backtracking on what I said before. If this was a critique on watchability, this film would get 5 stars. It’s unintentional comedy with fat men driving cars that’s wheels pop off faster than you can say hello, and has Sunny Leone and Arbaaz Khan in a creepily pedophilia-filled relationship with the former being 14 years younger than the latter in real life. But, this is a critique on the film as a whole. To sum it up, it has bad VFX, cheesy dialogue, a monotoned performance from Khan, TOO MANY slow-mo shots which Walia clearly thought would spice up the narrative and a very intriguing at first, but slowly fizzling out act from Leone. I’m going with 1.5 stars out 5. If you’re looking for a film with friends that’ll tickle your insides, without knowing it, I urge you to go for this one.