Setters Movie Review: Shreyas Talpade and Aftab Shivdasani’s Film Offers an Intriguing Insight Into Educational Malpractices

Earlier this year, we had Emraan Hashmi playing a middleman who indulges in paper leaks in Why Cheat India. This week, we have Setters, where Aftab Shivdasani and Shreyas Talpade get out of their Masti and Golmaal franchises to deal with malpractices in competitive exams in India. Intriguingly, both the films also have lead stars who are struggling to retain their box office form. As the name suggests, Setters is about a nefarious group of people who 'sets' the exams for those who are willing to cough up enough money to buy papers from them. So does Setters have anything new to say that Why Cheat India didn't? Well, there is a lot to get intrigued by the film when it is on documentary mode! Spoiler Alert! Shreyas Talpade to Give 14 Unique Gifts to Wife Tonight To Mark His 14th Wedding Anniversary! Deets Inside.

So in Setters, it is Apurva (Shreyas Talpade) and his gang of loyalists (Vijay Raaz, Manu Rishi, Neeraj Sood, Zeishan Quadri) who leak papers for various competitive exams. Although they are based out of Varanasi, their operations spread all over the country and they have the blessings of the local kingpin Bhaiyyaji (Pavan Raj Malhotra). Fed up of their ingenious methods to steal and leak papers, the state police appoints top cop Aditya Singh (Aftab Shivdasani) to catch Apurva red-handed. The interesting point here is that Apurva and Aditya had been old friends who went their separate ways because of different ambitions and personal reasons.

Aditya arranges his own team (Anil Mange, Jameel Khan, Sonalli Sehgall) to set a trap for Apurva. However, the wily Apurva is always a step ahead of the police, while trying to earn more bucks from the easy-way seeking parents.

One fact that I loved both about Why Cheat India and Setters is how they manage to expose the workings of the middlemen. Setters goes one step further than Why Cheat India, in basing the film in the current era (the Emraan Hashmi-starrer begins in the past decade) as if to tell us that NaMo or NoNaMo, the malpractices in this field continue to thrive.

The best bits in Setters involve around how Apurva and his team manage to fund ways beat the system, using skills from unexpected places and getting help from within the system itself. The research done by Ashwini Chaudhary and his team to make these portions believable is quite commendable. Chaudhary also manages to indulge in a bit of social commentary in these portions. Like the scene where the villain, a Hindu fanatic, asks his crony who among the police team is fallible and the latter points out the Muslim guy among them (it's another tale that things don't go as per their expectations).

There is also some thrill in the cat-and-mouse game between Apurva and Aditya. What dampens this particular aspect is how sketchily written the characters of the police team are. Apart from having a single trait of being 'honest', there is nothing else you can use to define any of these characters, including Aditya's. Only one character manages to get some slack here and that's Jameel Khan's roguish cop, Abdul. But even he doesn't get much to do post-interval. The Deewar-like saga around Aditya and Apurva lacks any kind of depth thanks to these issues. I am not really sure if the director wants us to root for these so-called honest cops when he gives much more dynamics to the opposite team. It is like watching Chennai Super Kings take on a local club team at home turf. If you really like to make this match like Robert De Niro and Al Pacino's Heat, then make sure that both the characters are better written (and have better performers).

Ashwini Chaudhary puts much gusto in the portions that depict the malpractices (the scene where Vijay Raaz's character leaks engineering entrance paper from a printing press is a hoot). However, the same energy is missing in the portions that add up the drama around the characters. It feels as if some of the character arcs are very vaguely written and confusing. Just like the film's intentions.

At the beginning of the film, a character returns Apurva's leaked paper for Railways, saying she will pass the exam without the need to sell her house. A surprises Apurva claims that Railways needs good people like her. So what does he do? He still gives her the leaked paper, this time for free, and the 'good' girl takes it. So much for honesty!

Even the villain Bhaiyyaji, whose buildup had so much intrigue, is woefully sidelined in the second half. There is also a needless friction inserted between him and Apurva, that a smart character like Bhaiyyaji should have avoided. Even the love story between Apurva and Bhaiyyajis daughter (Ishita Dutta) is not given enough meat to be so integral for the movie's setting. Setters further creates more drama by hinting that Aditya could be jealous of Apurva for certain personal reasons, but it never harps on that either.

While the makers have shot the film at real locations and all for originality, there are times where we see they have scrimmaged over production values. Like a scene that is set in a flight cabin, which looks as real as the bull that Varun Dhawan was fighting in Kalank two weeks back. Another weak area for Setters is the dialogues - there was really no 'Waah Bhai Waah!' moment that the movie needed. So by the time the movie is over, there is hardly any scene that's worth remembering. Save for that Vijaz Raaz scene, though!

The Performances

Aftab Shivdasani, seen on the big screen after a long time, is quite average as the honest officer. His cue to act like a cop seems to walk as if there are two bricks under his armpits, have a grumpy expression and use black shades to hide the lack of any emotions in his eyes. Shreyas Talpade fares much better as the smartypants 'setter', even though the film offers little to challenge him as an actor. Pavan Raj Malhotra, flaring nostrils and all, strikes an imposing figure as Bhaiyyaji. It's really sad that Setters couldn't really figure out how to take this character ahead. Vijay Raaz, once again, scores in every scene he is in. Jameel Khan, who was annoying in this week's other release, Blank, scores here with a fine performance.

The female actors, be it Ishita Dutta or Sonalli Sehgall, get little scope in the movie. The rest of the ensemble, like Anil Mange, Zeeshan Quadri, Manu Rishi, Neeraj Sood, Pankaj Jha, are good.

Yay!

- Most of the 'setting' portions

- The Supporting Cast

- A couple of Thrilling Sequences

Nay!

- The Imbalances Equation

- The Portions Around The 'Setting' Suck

- Incomplete Arc

- Inconsistent Production Values

Final Thoughts

There are some thoughts and efforts put in Setters to deliver a film that exposes the malpractices in competitive exams. That said, Setters doesn't offer a balanced look into these crimes, instead, leaning towards the culprits. Watch Setters to see how competitive exams become a breeding ground for corruption to thrive, but don't expect the film to offer any solution for this.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on May 02, 2019 07:40 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).