The Film: Satta
Director: Madhur Bhandarker
Producer: Metalight Productions
Music: Raju Singh
Lyrics: Javed Akhtar
Starring: Raveena Tandon, Atul Kulkarni and Sameer Dharmadhikari
RATING: 1/10

Metalight Productions Pvt. Ltd.'s Satta (A) is a political film about games politicians play to remain in power. An independent and bold girl, Anuradha, gets married to the son of a politician and is disillusioned by the double standards of her husband and in-laws who want her to be a doormat in the house. Things, however, change when her husband, due to contest MLA elections, is jailed for a murder. In a bid to keep the family's political business going, the father-in-law prevails upon her to contest the MLA elections in place of her imprisoned husband. She relents and from there begins the game of power.

The woman wins the election but her in-laws and husband lose her. She revolts against their double standards and leaves their house. She not only has an affair with an ambitious politician (who was her mentor in politics) but also follows his instructions in the political game. Enraged, her husband, now freed on bail, seeks divorce from her. In the dirty political game, her mentor gets her estranged husband killed, but she is unaware of the person behind her husband's murder. Ultimately, she openly revolts against her in-laws and supports her father-in-law's political opponent. But she plays her trump card when she supports an honest and genuine guy for the post of chief minister of the state.

The story (Madhur Bhandarkar) has no novelty and the screenplay (Manoj Tyagi) is an exercise in writing of convenience. Anuradha is shown to be a bold girl who comes from a broken home but why she clings on to a marriage which is a sham - her husband beats her up, has affairs with other women and, to top it all, even kills an innocent woman - is not explained. As if that were not bad enough, she agrees to contest elections when her father-in-law pleads with her. Therefore, while she blames her in-laws of double standards, she herself becomes guilty of indirectly supporting her evil husband. In fact, Anuradha's character oscillates between the principled and the opportunist - and she is the protagonist of the film!

Why, her extra-marital affair with her political mentor is nothing short of 'criminal' for a large mass of the orthodox Indian audience which is not used to seeing their heroines behave like that. And mind you, she is supposed to be the only clean character among the other shark-like characters in the film. To make matters worse, Anuradha tries to justify her sleeping with her mentor by blaming her father-in-law of himself keeping mistresses! And this, when the father-in-law has never been shown to be interacting with his mistress or even referring to her in a single scene. Besides, Anuradha's blatant expose of her father-in-law to his face will be hated by the orthodox audience, so what if he is an evil guy.

Anuradha is shown to be street-smart and yet, she asks naïve questions like what under-world dons and businessmen are doing in a party thrown by politicians! Her assumption that her political mentor was principled appears too ridiculous to be true! This, when she has seen his shrewd and opportunistic side too well. All these are blatant flaws in the script and serve to expose the lack of application of mind by the writers. Another example of convenient screenplay writing: two main villains in the film (Anuradha's husband and her mentor) are killed by their opponents rather than being finished off in a game of the mind. Anuradha's revolt against her husband and in-laws mainly within the four walls of her house is not what one expected in a political film. The audience would've been far happier had she humiliated them politically. The only time she does that is towards the end when she supports her father-in-law's political opponent.

The entire game of politics has been over-simplified in the film. The viewer would get the impression that everything's very simple for a politician.

Dialogues (Manoj Tyagi and Madhur Bhandarkar) are raw and effective at places but even they don't have the impact they should've had, because of the shoddy screenplay. Why, the film drops every ten minutes or so. It is extremely slow also. The climax, in which Anuradha pitches for the genuine politician, doesn't appeal much if only because the genuine guy does nothing worthwhile throughout the film. It, therefore, gives the viewer a feeling that Anuradha is fighting a battle for an inconsequential guy.

Raveena Tandon does extremely well as Anuradha. Atul Kulkarni, as her mentor, is excellent. Sameer Dharmadhikari makes a confident big-screen debut and delivers an impressive performance as Anuradha's husband. Srivallabh Vyas shines as Anuradha's father-in-law. Govind Namdev is superb as Srivallabh Vyas' arch-rival. Manoj Joshi acts ably. Amardeep Jha is good. Anju Mahendroo, Saadhika Randhawa (special appearance), Suchitra Pillai (special appearance) and the rest lend fair support.

Madhur Bhandarkar's biggest achievement in the film is that he has extracted good performances out of his talented cast. Having under-performed in the writing department (alongwith Manoj Tyagi), he also does not excel in the direction department. Music (Raju Singh) is appropriate to the mood of the film. 'Gungunati hai' (class-appealing) and 'More saiyyan bhaye kotwal' (mass-appealing) are melodious. Background score is effective. Camerawork (Madhu S. Rao) is good. Production values are ordinary. Technically, alright.

On the whole, Satta is a non-starter. Pretending to be an intellectual film, it would not even appeal to the intelligentsia because it offers nothing new. This kind of dark, dull and documentary-like film is more suited for satellite TV.