The first Pakistani film released this year, Thora Jee Le, pushed the country’s already ailing film industry back by at least 10 years. It’s one of those films that college students plan and then fail to execute properly because of lack of finances, logistics and skill. With great ‘overconfidence’ comes great responsibility and writer/director Rafay Rashdi’s directorial debut fails miserably as there is no direction, no story and forgettable acting by the cast.

Thora Jee Le has been partly inspired from Luv Ranjan’s Akaash Vani. The Bollywood film is treated as a cult classic by a few and clearly Rafay Rashdi was ‘inspired’ by it. The ‘writer’ in him decided to pen the script for the ‘director’ in him and voila, he had a film. It’s been produced by prominent politician and television anchor Mehtab Akbar Rashdi (his mother) and the soundtrack and score is by Sohaib Rashdi (his brother) — although you’d have to search for the music which is practically nonexistent and what little there is, is nothing to be proud of.

Thora Jee Le is a very sad start for Pakistani films in 2017

This is supposed to be a ‘coming-of-age’ movie but 15 minutes in you realise there is actually no plot. Party (played by the talented Bilal Abbas) overdoses on drugs. His friends decide to take the ‘addict’ to a farmhouse instead of rehab. Things start to unravel and we realise our friends lead rather imperfect lives, especially since the trip to the farmhouse did not cure Party of his addiction. The rest of the film then moves at a slow pace and concludes with a convenient ‘six months later’ slide. 

It seems that the script was written for one character and then the dialogues were distributed among the rest. After every few minutes, the film changed its genre: from coming-of-age, it became a road-trip flick; then suddenly there was a ghost (horror?); then there was a truth-or-dare game with no shot of the bottle they were using; there was a confused one-sided love story that came before a speech on women empowerment; and finally a vague attempt to have an ending.

There is a scene in the film where Misha slaps Kaizaad and tells him that rich people think they can get away with anything — that’s exactly how most of the audience felt about the makers of the film.

There were endless bathroom jokes that are intolerable even in stage plays these days. There’s a dead lizard which the friends have a ‘great time’ with (the audience doesn’t). And the film is so low-budget that the entire college sequence consists of a couple of shots of the premises and a graduation ceremony that only had six students in front of a garden, wearing caps and gowns. 

Let’s talk about the actors whose career took a step back due to this amateur attempt — Bilal Abbas is a fantastic television actor and he should have thought twice before accepting the project, as it has put a dent in his reputation. In the first half, he is referred to as Party, while in the second he is called Pervez or Khan Sahib for no reason. Rizwan Ali Jaffri’s Kaizaad comes out as blank and tries very hard to act but fails miserably. He needs to decide whether he is an actor, model or singer because he disappoints in all.

Kasim Khan as TC and Salman Faisal as Andy were quite annoying and came across as serious wannabes. Salman Faisal’s character breaks the ‘fourth wall’ and addresses the audience directly which looks stupid because of his ‘bathroom-searching’ antics. Fatima Shah Jillani tries very hard to play the bubbly Bahaar but falls flat as does Ramsha Khan’s Misha, the only one in the group who is married. She’s also the only one that doesn’t know that Kaizaad has feelings for her. Her character had the most potential, but the bad script and direction pretty much ruin it. Ahsan Mohsin Ikram plays her possessive husband Azaad and all he does is shout and stare. In fact, he shouldn’t have been in the poster as he isn’t even a friend from the group! 

Some of the friends were depicted as mature 20-somethings, while others came across as teenagers. Just like the ‘cool’ names for friends, we have dialogues starting with “Bro” and “Dude.” There is a scene in the film where Misha slaps Kaizaad and tells him that rich people think they can get away with anything — that’s exactly how most of the audience felt about the makers of the film. 

Thora Jee Le can be categorised as a ‘drawing room classic’ since it is one of those movies that is literally a family affair — made for friends and family. Veteran actor Shaan Shahid must watch such films before tweeting about the screening of Pakistani films in India. We don’t need a committee to make India screen our films in their country; we need one for quality control. Especially when there are films such as Balu Mahi (inspired from Akaash Vani again) and Sahir Lohdi’s Raasta in the pipeline.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine January 29th, 2017