Film: Kuttey
Director: Aasmaan Bhardwaj
Actors: Arjun Kapoor, Tabu, Kumud Mishra
Rating: 3/5
The only time I went LOL in this comedy-caper is when the lead character is narrating his story to the audience, between various settings. One of which is a news channel, where he continues with his narration to the anchor. And that’s fine; and who cares.
Only the channel he’s speaking to is called ‘BND News’. Which, well, Google it, is the best pejorative, based on truth, saved for most of India’s TV news networks.
Sometimes, casual asides such as these make devotedly ‘genre flicks’ — so thinly layered otherwise, and lacking in back-stories to engage with characters at all — somewhat worth their weight in time.
Also Read: Kuttey Trailer: Arjun Kapoor and Tabu unleash raw and unfiltered language!
Helps that the length is set at a tight, 112 minutes. Any further, and you might seek gyan. There’s none. Consider the bit where criminals and cops are on a dirty mission together.
One of them wants to start a WhatsApp group to share details. What should he call that group — that’s the big concern. Much smaller worries are around humans, dying at the rate of a body a second.
No one keeps count. And who would, when cops are themselves the criminals — and the movie is derived wholly from movies, rather than life itself.
So let’s check the boxes first. Arjun Kapoor plays the main policewalla. This is easily the best we’ve seen him onscreen, lately (his last releases being Ek Villain Returns, Bhoot Police, Sardar Ka Grandson).
Alongside is the experienced fellow in the force, Kumud Mishra, who never delivers a false note, ever. Before them is another major cop, Tabu — how can you go wrong with that?
Also Read: Felt Naseer bhai would tell me not to make it: `Kuttey` director Aasmaan Bhardwaj
What’s supposed to go horribly wrong is actually a plot to loot, with separate sets of criminals, eyeing the same booty of cash, over a night in Bombay. Twistedly, you follow the money.
So there’s Guy Ritchie (Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels) and Quentin Tarantino (Jackie Brown), for storytelling Bibles. Buddy-cop, heist, endlessly double-crossing agents, non-linear timeline, etc, for basic sum and substance. We’re looking at a genre that, on its own, may have overstayed its ’90s/early noughties’ glory, already.
Even Tarantino is not the same director of Reservoir Dogs — he’s evolved to another level (Inglorious Basterds, Once Upon A Time in Hollywood). Although must say, based on The Gentleman (2019), Ritchie is pretty much the same guy!
That Kuttey doesn’t feel full-on fake still — as so many of these immaculate inspirations do — is because, in its inherent desiness, it is closer to Vishal Bhardwaj’s Kaminey (2009).
Now I remember only two things from Kaminey. One is that the movie introduced to the world, ‘Bengali mafia’ — only documentation of such a breed, in fact or fiction, that I know of!
Capers of this sort depend much on specimens for characters, for a cool quotient in the heat. Hence, Gadchiroli’s Maoists, Uttar Pradesh’s ‘katta’ (country gun) makers, and the Mumbai mafia, plus police, jostling/jamming together in this Dogfather named Kuttey.
My other memory of Kaminey is from before its release. An actor (Chandan Roy Sanyal), who I’d just met and was hanging with at a late-night dive-bar, randomly plugged into my ears an unreleased song picturised on him, from a forthcoming film.
You can imagine what it must’ve felt like to first hear, ‘Dhan te nan’, for a background score kicking in from the earphone, while observing wasted drunks at Laxmi Palace bar, at 4 am, in Andheri East!
Dhan Te Nan is also the anthem of Kuttey. While, of course, it’s not the same ‘feel’, the music adds an inimitable, essential flavour. Not a coincidence. The film is the directorial debut of Bhardwaj’s son, Aasmaan.
That also explains the level of actors assembled to pull off a low-budget movie heist: besides the cast mentioned above, Naseeruddin Shah (don), Radhika Madan (don’s daughter), down to Ashish Vidyarthi, Anurag Kashyap, in single-scene cameos!
Call it nepotism, if you like. It’s actually networking and goodwill, earned over years, that one passes on to their future generation, without taking anything away from others. It’s a good thing. The point is what you make of it.
As a movie goer, I would’ve liked a fresher, more original voice, since callous crimes, even with subtle comedy, is done to death — what with even coke and Canada you watch in this film is where we emerged from in the last, desi, Netflix series, Cat (2022).
Except, the money in this movie that everyone is after, is merely Rs 3-4 crore! Accounting for post-pandemic inflation, the divided loot will fetch you nothing. What if they upped the budget, hugely — would it become a more fun, Ocean’s 11? Hell, no.
This low-stakes’ game allows you to put your feet up, wonder what happens next, observe the casual asides. And listen to jokes, since people have simply stopped telling them — they merely share on WhatsApp.
The one here relates to the story about bicchu (scorpion) and frog crossing a river, that you’ve heard a couple of times in the recent movie, Darlings, as well — where Bhardwaj had scored the music.
How that story pans out in the final scene—with arguably the biggest practical joke played on Indians in recent history, and that even desi ‘BND news’ can’t talk about — is what makes this film worth the wait, till the end. The last being the lasting impression, isn’t it.
