Tadap REVIEW: Ahan Shetty makes a promising debut with Tara Sutaria but the film lacks the desperation

Director: Milan Luthria

Cast: Ahan Shetty, Tara Sutaria, Saurabh Shukla, Kumud Mishra,

Bollywood Bubble Rating: 2.5

A remake of a Telugu hit film RX 100, Tadap launches Suniel Shetty’s son Ahan Shetty into the movies with Tara Sutaria. Tadap ~ literal translation desperation is about Ishaana (Ahan), who is a man from a small town, as told and is all hearts. London-returned Ramisa (Tara) jokes that she is anyway not looking for a transplant, plainly, implying that him being pure-hearted or not is the least of her concerns. Said in jest, the implications of her nonchalance is what Tadap is. Milan Luthria sets this story of love and angst in Mussoorie.

As shown Ishaana falls in love with free-spirited Ramisa after a few meetings. They play around and get serious only to be told that their relationship has no future. Ramisa tells Ishaana that she will speak to her father and they will elope if anyone resists her desires because she won’t marry anyone she doesn’t want to. But, her father who values his izzat more than anything gets her married to a London-based guy. Ishaana is in despair and spends the next three years on the edge, like literally. He is often seen picking up fights, mindlessly roaming on the road, smoking up lifelessly as he endures pain and angst. He is seen standing on the bike near the cliff, as he awaits his desperation to end.

 

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Tadap is about Ishaana’s desperation to first be loved and then unite with his love. Director Milan Luthria treats the film with the same prism backed by music by Pritam.

Milan has not meddled much with the screenplay and has kept the essence of the story intact. However, the use of too many songs in the first half did feel unnecessary. Honestly, another problem I have with the story in itself is there is no character arc to Ishaana. Yes, he is a good-hearted man who turned rogue but is that all? I wished we could also know the Ishaana which no one knew! Ramisa, on the other hand, is an interesting character but again, there is so much that we don’t know about them as people except for what is shown and is apparent. I would have loved some layering to the characters which would have been interesting to unravel.

 

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Milan makes sure to give Ahan a macho introductory shot for his debut. With a dhamakedar action sequence, Ahan enters the showbiz with a bang. He is the hero and the villain of Tadap and Milan treats him exactly like that. Ahan has an intriguing charm about him onscreen which makes him stand out. His hard work to slip comfortably between his rogued look and playing the simple guy is apparent. He delivers a decent performance for his debut and is obviously well prepared unlike Senior Shetty from his debut years. Of course, he, just like his father, cannot dance. Of course, there is a lot of scope to improve as well. I found him slightly weak in the comedy scenes but rather toughened up in the action and bichara-aashiq scenes. With the right scripts, Ahan can turn out to be a good performer.

Tara as Ramisa had so much to offer as an actor. Given her last two performances, as Ramisa, Tara had a lot to bite on and she tries to break away from any image. She seemed to try too hard, in the beginning, to be carefree and fun. Also, I feel with actors like Kumud Mishra, Saurabh Shukla around, one really needs to up their game to be able to get noticed. Kumud Mishra plays Ramisa’s father, who is the MLA of the town and Saurabh Shukla plays Daddy, who adopted Ishaana when he was 10. Both of them do justice to their half baked roles.

 

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Unlike many of Milan’s previous films, the music of Tadap doesn’t strike the right chords. It is passable at the least.

Without comparing it to the original, I feel Tadap is a decent watch but it doesn’t make you desperate for another watch!

Also Read: EXCLUSIVE: Tadap stars Ahan Shetty and Tara Sutaria reveal how they deal with heartbreaks

Bhavna Agarwal

Assistant Editor at Bollywood Bubble. An ambivert who is currently high on K-dramas and K-Pop. A forever Bollywood fan, who continues to gush over solid stories and characters. Hit me up for a fine conversation over chai.

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