User reviews

The movie is all about our educational system culture which has unfortunately been turned into a money making business. The writer and director has done a reasonable job to convince the audience of the importance of such a sensitive yet interesting subject. The casting combo of Shabana Azmi and Juhi Chawla proved worth a watch and both of them have done a good job by maintaining a reasonable balance in their acting. Divya Dutta has also done a fair job in a negative role. However, there are sequences which made the movie a bit clumsy and boring in the second half. However, the director makes few effective maneuvers to turn it back on the track. Such movies are really important to impart a psychology in the minds of our young children that how important are teachers in their life and the whole society. Despite of bitter circumstances, hardships and difficulties, they (teachers) are determined to deliver their best selflessly and this makes them to deserve respect from all. The film may not earn a commercial response yet it deserves to be watched once. Hail your teachers and love them is the movie subject which has been transmitted very well.

The early 90's of Bollywood was ruled by gorgeous and talented Sridevi, Madhuri Dixit, Juhi Chawla,Karisma Kapoor and Raveena Tandon who set the screen on fire with their charisma and versatility in acting. If 90's has shades of commercial actors, the art-house cinema was creating strong impact with Shabana Azmi, Nandita Das and Konkono Sen Sharma ruling the roaster. Chalk N Duster brings the actors together from both world and gives you a well-intentioned well film but is mowed down by weak script.

Chalk N Duster tells the story of school teachers in a modern Kantaben High School. The school is governed by a Hitler-like principal (played by Divya Dutta) whose ultimate motto is to make money and bring in new teachers. In order to achieve this, she starts torturing the existing teachers. Things gets out of hand, when one of the Maths teacher (played by Shabana Azmi) is terminated and succumbs to the false allegations. Her fellow teacher and friend (played by Juhi Chawla) fights back with the school authority and hatches a plan to bring justice.

Directed by Jayant Gilatar, Chalk N Duster takes some times to build on you. As the title suggest, you watch the film thinking about the story on education, studies and students. Unfortunately, the film bores you with petty politics played in the premises of the school. The constant nagging between principal and teacher, the fight for equality and justice is non-stop and the melodrama will sag you down. Surprisingly, the film boast of some talents like Girish Karnad, Richa Chadha and Rishi Kapoor who comes to the rescue to the melodrama. None of the songs are good. Editing is below the par. Cinematography is average. Art direction is poor. However, what works is the timely and enduring performances by ‪Juhi Chawla‬ and ‪‎Shabana Azmi‬. Both the actors play their part perfectly.

On the whole, Chalk N Duster has right heart in place but lousy direction and lose screenplay will disappoint you.

• Ketan Gupta

Disclaimer: This is not an unbiased review because I have really missed seeing Juhi Chawla light up the screen all these years!

As expected, Chalk N Duster is a feel-good, underdog-to-winner story. Unfortunately, there's a bunch of overly dramatic/idealistic scenes especially in the second half that leave gaping holes in the plot, and the last 15 minutes are completely illogical. But I could watch Juhi and Shabana on screen forever! Juhi Chawla is simply adorable - I caught myself smiling every time she appeared on screen! Shabana Azmi delivers a stellar performance as usual, and with Girish Karnad, she moved me to tears of heartbreak and joy. Divya Dutta managed to pull off an unreasonably villainous character with finesse.

Watch it for Juhi and Shabana. Otherwise, skip it - the movie is typically idealistic and predictable.

A good movie based off of the lives and struggles of our teachers. Definitely worth a watch.

As an interesting co-incidence, where 2015 began with a well- intentioned film TAKE IT EASY focusing on the stressed life of school kids and the role of parents in it creating some serious issues, 2016 begins with a similar message oriented film CHALK N DUSTER focusing on the stressed life of school teachers and their relationship with the students as well as the management - more interested in money instead of education. So where TAKE IT EASY dealt with psychological and emotional aspect of the subject, CHALK N DUSTER refers to the ethical and business aspect of the same involving the political as well as corporate section of the society revealing an ugly truth.

The second similarity between the two films remains that both the appreciable ventures are impressive and tacky in parts together, having some highly emotional sequences too making you feel for the key protagonists on screen playing all realistic characters. And unfortunately, the third similarity is, that neither TAKE IT EASY was seen by a big section of viewers, nor CHALK N DUSTER is likely to reach its actual target audience due to several debatable issues related with our personal choice of cinema, the blind (male) star-following and step-treatment of the exhibitors given to such sincere attempts.

Talking about CHALK N DUSTER individually, here is a film that has everything right and touching as far as its core important subject and leading performances are concerned. But the film certainly could have been much more impressive and moving with a better second half and another novel culmination instead of the lengthy clichéd climax showcasing a 'KBC' kind of quiz show hosted by Rishi Kapoor (playing a cameo).

It begins well with all decent sequences introducing a great cast ensemble of talented ladies namely Shabana Azmi, Zareena Wahab, Juhi Chawla, Divya Dutta, Richa Chadha and Upasana Singh. The pace never drops before intermission and you enjoy watching the clashes between its strong characters heading towards a loud volcanic outcome in the later reels. Plus the peak is rightly felt as Richa Chadha makes her entry as a journalist just along the text displayed on screen saying RECESS referring to the interval.

However, things do not turn out to be exciting enough as expected in the film's second half, in absence of any skillful execution and novel story progression making way for all routine seen before stuff instead of the much expected volcanic eruption in the heated clashes. The pace drops and the sequences turn out to be nothing fresh with a more than 15 minutes long climax as mentioned above.

Yet, thankfully the spirit remains the same as in the beginning and an extremely touching emotional quotient doesn't let you feel any repulsion watching the end proceedings probably with all moist eyes. Moreover such is the pull in all those rare facts shared in its finale that you remain engrossed throughout, despite knowing the truth that it's all going to end in the same predictable manner with the obvious win. For instance, the questions asked include, what is the meaning of KAUR used in Sikhism, what are the full forms of YAHOO & GOOGLE, what BRUCE LEE did in the initial stages of his career and more.

As the two leading teachers, both Shabana Azmi and Juhi Chawla excel as true teachers along with Zareena Wahab and Upasana Singh doing complete justice with their given characters as required. Divya Dutta playing the negative role does it well (without any actual depth given by the writers) but Richa Chadha is shockingly wasted in a role that could have been done by anyone with a pretty face (which is quite a shame!). In the male leads once again we have Jackie Shroff simply doing nothing significant in his few scenes and Aryan Babbar also remaining under-utilized as the partner in crime with Divya, whereas Rishi Kapoor is fine in his surprising cameo towards the end.

In totality, CHALK N DUSTER is an appreciable yet uneven project from director Jayant Gilatar. It has a decent camera-work, just okay dialogues but an interesting background score demanding attention at times. Besides I really liked the way the composer and sound designer treated the voice in songs describing the importance A GURU in our life using traditional verses. As per its script, the brief references of a teacher's personal life post the school hours work well whereas the clichéd melodrama around the illness and the finale quiz doesn't, that could have been dealt differently.

Having said that, there still cannot be any denial to the fact that this honest effort surely deserves to be applauded (to a large extent) ignoring all it's the major hiccups and average insertions, as (nowadays) Hindi Cinema rarely gets into such educating, realistic mode talking about our basic social problems and lack of moral values.

As an important film CHALK N DUSTER brings forward a scary issue wherein we are not actually taking good care of the most crucial and guiding figures of our lives, our school teachers displaying a flawed vision. The corporates are clearly considering 'Education' as another profit-oriented industry instead of a nation-building exercise and the teachers are openly treated as easily replaceable clerks without any individual importance or a contributing value.

Hence serving its purpose well, CHALK N DUSTER works at many levels giving a significant message and with such an inviting cast ensemble of all extremely talented ladies, its surely deserves to be given a chance by the thinking viewers.

Chalk & Duster The age old injustice done to teachers ! Teachers should be the most pampered of all employees! Once the teachers, who actually sculpt our future, are happy, the happiness of the rest of the nation will automatically be taken care of!

When a teacher imparts knowledge, along with the information stored in the books, the personality of the teacher too gets imbibed by his/her students.

Thus it is most important that teachers possess a strong and positive, optimistic and happy disposition.

Film shows how schools are speedily turning into business centers! The teachers are unconfident to speak up against corrupt administrators because of fear of losing jobs! If teachers are so unconfident ... what is expected from students?!

Private school teachers are paid lesser but they have to put in double the effort – to keep up with the competition of neighbouring schools!

On the other hand, it was also shown that Municipality schools run by the Government are not good enough and parents are reluctant to get their wards admitted to Govt. schools! Immediate attention should be given towards raising the standards of Govt. schools so that both parents and teachers get the confidence of joining such schools.

It is because teachers get a raw deal that some of them take private tuitions and force the students to join their batches..this gives rise to hatred & animosity towards teachers! Not every student belongs to a rich family that can afford expensive after-school tuitions – by forcing students to join private tuitions and failing them during exams just because he/she did not join the tuition course is a devastating experience for both the student and his parents! Such shocking experiences since childhood does not allow the development of a confident & positive personality ...and as a result the entire nation suffers because of negative, unconfident & pessimistic citizens!

Teaching is a noble profession – but is this how the teachers should be treated? Is this how nobility is paid back?

The movie has an awesome message. Issue in our modern society now a days that is needed to be addressed. Rather than giving respect to our teachers and their way of teaching we are always looking ahead in this race of life. We keep ignoring those who molded us in a perfect way to face the hardships of life and to face them head on.

I really appreciate the writer for looking in the issue and will really recommend it to watch at least once. Especially have your children watch the movie as it will be a really special message for them. It will be a nice boost for the younger generation and help them in understanding the worth of the teachers and how hard it is for them to survive in today's race.

I hope we can respect our teachers and always love them in the way they deserve it and do something to make their lives easier. In short an awesome message in the movie.

Shabana Azmi and Juhi Chawla star in this light school drama which aims to address the challenges and difficulties of school teachers, who never get their due, who are underpaid and underappreciated. Indeed, the premise is very interesting, and the idea of a film set in a school. But sadly, despite a good foundation, the execution is very poor, and the direction is not very good. Some of the characters are just caricatures. Chawla and Azmi are very good in their roles. Azmi is particularly good as the devoted teacher, but then both are let down by the script. Similarly, Divya Dutta, who is a good actress, gets a role which is so stereotypical that she ends up looking stiff and unintentionally hilarious as the cruel principal. There film does have its moments and it's not a complete waste of time, but I wish these talented actresses were given better material to work with.

Really nice and short movie. Juhi chawla and shabana azmi showed why they are evergreen actress. Only thing which I felt could have been improved was ending of the movie. They could have shown bit more of what happened after they won the game show. How they created their dream school and what happened with other staff members of the school. Rest everything is great in the movie. Absolutely flawless performances by two great actress. These are the type of movies which should be encouraged in Bollywood and media and they should be watched by the mass of the nation so that these movies should get the deserving credits.

The title itself reflects the maker being outdated. When all schools are moving in white board era they are still living in chalk and duster time period. Chalk and duster is mostly visible in government schools only but this film premise is a second top school of the town. This is not the way to deal the problem between teachers and school management. Somehow, they have loosely portrayed it with corporate, outside and inside rivalry style. Story is nothing mere an idea. Screenplay is obsolete and boring with few cheesy metaphors, like dosa maker splashing water on hot tawa, test tube drops after a bad news, teacher gets heart attack after getting termination letter! like all serious health issues wait for a bad news. There is an OK scene to chuck a Hindi teacher by shifting him to P.T teacher knowing his health problems. Dialogues are for 80s, like Arjun eklavya example, Seeta ki pavitrata ki agni pareeksha, Bhavi karndhar type of heavy words. Dialogues in scene, when Juhi Chawla comes for press interview could have been effective but its length and language dropped it significantly. Makers had not visited any school recently otherwise they must have realized the time difference between their imagination and reality. Climax is of KBC type, it's most boring, just unbearable by length and justification of teachers being genius by asking random 10 question from the world. All exterior shots are hazy and color disaster, they must have been compromised on camera or taken gorilla shoot but they prefer to even waste money on good but expensive then technology actors like Jackie Shroff, Girish Karnad. Performance wise Shabana Aazmi as Vidya is good. Whenever she gets even a tiny scope, she performs, like in hospital scene, when she talks with her husband, even on scooter when she interacts with an onlooker kid in car so it looks natural. Juhi Chawala Mehta as Jyoti is OK. Divya Dutta is good actor but seems confused and repetitive. Rishi Kapoor as news anchor is charming even in most boring sequence. Zarina Wahab as principal is fine. Music is simply bad. Background score is worse. Continuous chanting of "Guru dev, guru Brahma" is unbearable.

Every parents, their children and than every teacher and their students must watch this movie. A must see for entire society, that how teachers suffers at work place, the so called noble profession isn't noble towards teachers.

An attempt to show "teachers' role" and their reputation and their state in the society... A Great Presentation Totally non-commercial movie, or a masala movie...

A movie, touching the reality... Well made tightly bound clean movie. Acting from each and every part in the movie is so beautiful and to the point that you don't dare to miss a single scene...

A movie for everyone... Must watch...

It was treat to eyes, seeing acting from Girish Karnad, Shabana Azmi, Juhi Chawla, Divya Dutta...

I wish all the best to the movie makers... Great work, Kudos...

And, such movies doesn't need fake publicity

If you are making a film about schools and teachers, then it better have proper grammar and styling. But, this one here is so low on standards and execution that even the title uses a shortener.

Vidya (Azmi) is a school teacher in her late 50s trying to make ends meet with her job of more than twenty years. The private school which she teaches in is a den of politics and sadism where other multi-talented teachers like Jyoti (Chawla) also teach. After a sudden shuffle in the top management, Kamini (Dutta), the school's supervisor becomes the principal only to make the teachers', as well as the entire school's, lives a living hell.

While the story is straight out of a Star Plus soap, the execution is so bad that it is embarrassing. The characters are so poorly baked that they all reek of rawness, making the audience gag. Commercialization of India's private education sector is a good topic to make a documentary on, not a film, which is more preachy than your neighborhood pastor.

At every node of the film, one is bound to find mistakes - horrible mistakes that will make you cringe. There is not a speck of realism in the screenplay nor was, it seems, there a proper study of the subject, for they even get a fact wrong. The quiz type climax just marauds it and pushes the 2 hours of reel into the black abyss of the worst and most embarrassing Bollywood films ever.

Thespians like Azmi, Rahman, and Karnad are totally wasted, while Chawla wins the competition for worst acting.

BOTTOM LINE: Chalk N' Duster is a sketchy drama about propaganda of Indian education system where the subject is not the issue, but the lousy execution is. Avoid. (Note: My 50-something mother loved the film, though.)

GRADE: F

Can be watched with a typical Indian family? YES