Teen Thay Bhai

A weird movie, and not just because three bhais hate one another for no apparent reason

This is the weirdest Hindi film in years. It starts off sane, introducing you to the brothers Chixie, Happy and Fancy Gill. Okay, the names are a bit unusual, but that’s nicknames for you. Then it describes a complex will left by their granddad that ensures that the siblings, who hate the sight of one another, spend some quality time together at a property in the mountains before they inherit it.

Okay, you say, so the old boy wanted them to bond and heal old wounds festering since childhood. Good idea.  But from the moment they all turn up at this house in the middle of a snow storm and tear into each other like wild animals, the mental health of the movie starts to decline. At first, just a few screws fall off. Granddad’s ashes, entrusted to Fancy, are not intact and a dead dog is involved somewhere. Then there is a man hiding in the chimney, smoking pot.
Gradually, the level of the Gill brothers’ violence towards one another increases and turns murderous. Heads are pushed into ovens, guns fired indiscriminately and roofs blown off.

There is no reason attributed to the assaults, and as the axis of the film starts to wobble, the deportment of the characters become more unstable by the moment. 
The gravitational force that holds a movie together gets unhinged and a wild centripetal energy sends the audience scurrying for cover. Out of nowhere, European women emerge to make ‘marijuana paranthas’ and when Chixie (Puri) Happy (Dobriyal) and Fancy (Talpade) sit contentedly in the snow munching away, you get a sneaking idea of hallucinogenic script inspiration thereof. At the heart of Teen Thay Bhai is Om Puri, and the saddest image you take way is of this distinguished actor, now overweight and looking a decade older, hamming away like there is no tomorrow.

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Ajit Duara