You can’t help but smile at the irony that is Short Kut — The Con is On. In the film a struggling actor Raju (Arshad Warsi) steals a brilliant script written by a struggling writer-director Shekhar (Akshaye Khanna) and becomes a big star. In reality, writer-director Neeraj Vora (Phir Hera Pheri) has got his Short Kut script from star director Anees Bazmee (No Entry, Welcome, Singh is Kinng)!

Bazmee’s script was lying with Anil Kapoor Productions but he chose not to direct it. You watch Short Kut and you will know why. You can blame Bazmee for everything but the man knows what sells and what doesn’t. He must have written this script as a struggling writer many seasons ago and realised the futility of directing the film in 2009.

There’s nothing wrong with Short Kut. It’s just not interesting enough. It’s what the industry calls thakao, politely, and pakao, in hushed whispers. It’s a film which goes through the motions and hopes that the audience would appreciate the dedication and integrity that’s gone behind the production. Honestly, in today’s kambakkht Bollywood, when biceps and bikinis, stunts and swimsuits, are the order of the hour, it’s difficult to score with just some studious sermon.

Another attempt to show the inner machinations of the Mumbai movie machinery, Short Kut is luck by choice, where Arshad’s Raju Chor goes to the top of the Bolly pyramid while Akshaye’s Shekhar continues to struggle even as his lady love Mansi (Amrita Rao), industry ki top ki heroine, quits films to become Mrs Shekhar. The kahaani mein twist turns it into Abhimaan, as heavy-duty marital strife takes over from halka-phulka comedy. The rest of the 140-minute film has to travel to Thailand to tell you why you shouldn’t take the short cut to success and how hard work pays off in the (very) long run. While Luck by Chance tried to show the picture as it is, Short Kut goes for a more conventional feel-good moralistic tale of right and wrong.

One can see why Anil Kapoor refuses to produce a film without Akshaye Khanna in the cast. The man looks the part, whatever he does. He was brilliant as Harilal in Gandhi, My Father and here too, he is quite good as Mr Good. But the question is when you promote the movie as a comedy, who would be interested in only oodles of earnestness? Short Kut needed the Akshaye without the ‘e’, who can bring the house down scene after scene and not be half as serious about it.

Arshad Warsi is given that task here and while he is funny in a few scenes, he really overdoes it on most occasions. Consistency is clearly not the strength of the man, who had forgotten how he had played his Circuit in MBBS when he had turned up on the first day of shooting in Lage Raho Munnabhai. Let’s just say you can see his best timing for free, if you turn on the TV. The Short Kut trailer is all that you need to see of the movie.

As for the other ‘A’, Amrita Rao is just about okay. She is saddled with the task of showing bod and fortunately or unfortunately, she doesn’t have a lot to show. So all those skimpy nothings really don’t look that great on her. For the girl who shone so bright as a simple potter in Welcome to Sajjanpur, does Amrita need to get into this dare-bare gig?

There’s something about such insipid projects... nothing around seems to go right. So Shankar Ehsaan Loy churn out what must be one of their weakest compositions in a long time. In fact, you really have to recheck their name in the credits after those flat songs just pass you by, one by one. Kal nau baje is the one track where you can skip the smoke/loo break. Ideally you should take a break this weekend and save your money for the Love Aaj Kal and Kaminey tickets.

And hey Mr Anil Kapoor, of the Academy Award-winning Slumdog Millionaire fame, next time you make a mainstream Hindi film, please try and come up with something “fantastic, fabulous, mindblowing, mindblasting...” so we can all go jhakaas!