If you're looking for a meaningful story, layered performance, cinematic vision, character arcs etc., move on... you're on the wrong page. What Shatranj offers is the kind of unabashed equal opportunity plagiarism that died with the 90s. This movie has it all - the Kumar brothers classic Chalti Ka Naam Gadi remade with 50-something Kader Khan, 40- something Mithun & the cherubic 30-something Jackie Shroff playing brothers with conviction and elan, and all of them beaten fair and square by the most emotive Chimpanzee in moviedom, a know-it-all car, two of the cutest young actresses of that time (why don't we have cute heroines anymore? Lead actresses aren't even allowed to put on weight before they are Balan years old), Jackie & Divya trotting about on red carpets... and all that within just the 7 minutes of the movie that I managed to watch! My new mission in life is to find any scene from any movie in any language of any country in the world that can measure up against a heartbroken Kader Khan breaking into tears in the arms of the aforementioned Chimp... wish me luck.
