Ajay Wardhan, Review: Toothache

What do you get when a film about a dentist gives you an ache? Toothache, right? Not headache.

Ajay Wardhan is inspired by true events, which only goes to prove that truth is worse than fiction. While receiving an award, B.D.S. (Bachelor of Dental Surgery) Dr. Ajay Wardhan faces TV reporters, and their leading questions lead him to narrate a 96-minute flashback, more or less in sequence. Probably due to drinking and smoking scenes and one scene of a battered face, the film has been given a UA certificate, but one wonders whether Wardhan would have the gall to narrate these incidents to the press.

In the cast are Romil Chaudhary (Ajay Wardhan senior), Abhimanyu Aryan (Ajay Wardhan junior), Pihu Sharma as Pragati Agarwal (the heroine’s name is Pragati Agarwal, same as the writer director’s, and that cannot be a co-incidence), Kshitij Patwardhan as Vijay Wardhan, Yogesh Vatts (Vijay Junior), Aman Bhogal as Radha Devi, Ajay's Mother, Ravi as Ramnath Ji, Ajay's Father, Dimple Bagroy as Rashmi Agarwal, Pragati's Mother, Girish Thapar as Manoj Kumar, Pragati's Father, Dr. Nikita Sabarwal as a Journalist, along with Ruslaan Mumtaz, Arjumman Mughal, Aham Sharma, Priya Sharma, Aishwarya Raj Bhakuni and Rashiprabha Sandeepani. One of these might be the chap playing the Lucknow lad, Ankit. Why he was told to speak in a Bihari accent, only he and the writer-director know.

It has cinematography (some bright colours and aerial shots) by Yuvraj Indoria, Shakti Indoria and Sukhan Saar. The brutal editing, with some 100 shots of 4 frames each, is by Shubham Srivastav, Prabhat Ojha, Ankit Govind Dubey, Gagan Sharma and Manish Eklavya. Hold on…there is one more name…Priya. That makes six editors and three cinematographers. The more the merrier. And too bad if too many cooks spoil the broth.

Music is by Monty Sharma, with songs ending before they can get catchy. These include an item song that goes ‘Akkad bakkad bambey bo, which stays on screen long enough’.

Ajay Wardhan is written and directed by Pragati Agarwal. Screenplay and direction are both conspicuous by their absence. Agarwal probably set out to make a home video, and then somebody convinced her that this is cinema material. That somebody should take all the blame. It is not bad as amateur home video, but holds little or no interest for film-buffs, even as a biopic or docu-feature. Theatre-going audiences, if they do reach the cinema halls where Ajay Wardhan is playing, are likely to suffer the same ache that I did.

There is one redeeming factor, though: the length. Imagine watching it for only 96 minutes…just about the time takes for a root-canal treatment sitting.

Rating: * ½

Trailer: https://youtu.be/yXGpV2y3aek