Setters movie review: A tedious watch

And because our self-same dhoti-clad, marble-chested Bhaiyyaji (Malhotra) lives in Banaras, we get a lot of local colour: the ghats, the lingo, the ganga-aarti, the eating of ‘paan’ and so on. We also get his ‘shaagird’ (Talpade) who carries out the operation with smarts, along with his team-mates.

All is hunky dory till an honest cop (Shivdasani) shows up, determined to unearth the ‘setters’ (those who copy the question papers and pass them on, in exchange for cash). From then on, it becomes a chase, but there really is no doubt about who will win.

This film had the potential be an engaging thriller. Talpade gets into his part, and is suitably shifty and smooth as he goes along: the only time he is out of his depth is in the clunky love angle the plot dreams up for him. Malhotra vamps it up, and is a case-book study of the over-the-top baddies that Bollywood used to dish out. Without his slit-eyed throwback to good old-fashioned villainy, Setters would have been very dull indeed, especially when Shivdasani does nothing but flail in his pursuit of the bad guys.

Setters lays all its cards on the table in the first act itself: the follow-up is over-long and tedious. And, barring a few sharp moments, flat.