Why Cheat India movie review

 The film plays largely by the norms laid down in Bollywood’s  formulas  but it stays true in the main to its chosen theme, the rot in India’s education system, which is not a particularly easy premise to mine for high, nail-biting drama.

Mercifully, writer-director Soumik Sen (whose first film Gulaab Gang succumbed to overt melodrama) does not even try. This understated two-hour take on the jiggery-pokery that is allowed to go on in this country in the name of entrance exams and coaching centres, benefits enormously from a restrained performance by lead actor Emraan Hashmi .

Emraan Hashmi keeps the complex character on a tight leash even as the suave, smooth-talking conman indulges in activities that aren’t merely amoral but also border on the felonious. In his suitably seedy office, the wall behind him is covered with images of sundry goddesses, but his business hinges primarily on the future of small-town boys who are under constant pressure from their parents to crack the make-or-break entrance tests and land high-paying corporate jobs.

The fraudster keeps an eye out for the toppers – there are obviously only a handful of them strewn across the country – and induces them to join his racket, which entails helping undeserving candidates from wealthy families get through the exams with the help of students who know the answers. It is a high-risk game, but the money is so good that finding accomplices willing to stick their necks out is a cakewalk.

Overall,it is a low-key drama.