Akshay Kumar is a 30-something scriptwriter turned sleuth in a film that has a decent mystery at its heart but is too busy carrying the actor, as opposed to the other way round.
In a scene from Disnety+Hotstar’s Cuttputli, Arjan, a 30-something police officer played by Akshay Kumar tells his superiors “Serial killer ke saath power ka game nahi, mind game khelna padega sir”. It’s not terrible exposition but it is never quite exhibited in the events that follow. What ‘mind game’ Sethi plays exactly with the serial killer traumatizing a hill town is unclear by the climax. At which point the laborious, clunky dialogues of the film hide a crude fact – Cuttputli isn’t all bad, in fact in moments it even feels bright and promising. The only problem is it wants to hitch its wagon to Akshay Kumar the star, rather than Arjan Sethi, the character.
We are told he is obsessive, but he never quite echoes the nerdy qualities that confirm he actually cares for any of the things he claims to care about. He has a sister, who lives in Kasauli. Because Sethi cannot crack the Punjabi film industry with a gritty script in hand (believable actually) he chooses to, get this, become a police officer. The fact that Kumar wants to be passed off as a 36-year-old in this film is jarring as it is. He then proceeds to, as he always does, court younger women – Rakul Preet Singh playing a local school teacher. In one scene she remarks “Too young to be a father”. To which Kumar says, rather absurdly “Chawanprash”. It’s okay to want to be cast as a young man. It’s another thing to repeatedly address it within the film.
Cuttputli is set between the hills of Kasauli and Parwanoo in Himachal, but it has clearly been shot elsewhere. A serial killer has started to kidnap young girls from school, before brutally torturing them and killing them. This killer also leaves the head of a similarly brutalised doll at the house of the victims as a gift – a signature, so to speak of. Sethi’s brother-in-law played by an always charming Chandrachur Singh is also part of the local police unit. His proximity to the crimes is a caveat that the film tries to turn into something of an intimate story. The problem, however, is that while being an decent mystery, the film is also at times want to be a masala entertainer that doesn’t quite know what to do with its maverick lead.
There is some truly terrible dialogue in this film, a near absence of emotional distress in a town crawling with dread and fear. For that matter, the economy of the hill station is never fully realised – except of course the sexy drone shots. This insincerity lets down a film that feels superficially involved in the lives of those besotted by a nightmare strutting around in public. It’s appalling really that a film where several young girls are brutally maimed, struggles to get us to care for any of them. Then there is problem of Kumar’s phoney transition to a serious cop. In a role that probably demanded gravitas, a type of disappearing act that possibly only Ranveer Singh has managed in the recent past, Kumar looks and plays himself rather than Sethi.
Mind you all ideas aren’t bad here. The misdirection in the middle, the very fact that Kumar is supposed to play a reluctant cop who is against violence, and a simmering political equation at the police station are all adequate ingredients to turn this mixer into something truly interesting. And yet, Cuttputli is bafflingly inept despite its ideas. There is a wrenching scene in the film where Kumar and Singh must break down in each other’s arms. Done better, this could have been an exhibition of acting chops by two mature, experienced actors. Instead, it’s a scene that you cannot wait for to stop and largely because of Kumar who, as hallowed as his professionalism is made out to be, can possibly do with a break.
There are some obvious problems with casting a Kumar-like actor in a film that by definition has to cower down, and limit its geometry and aesthetic. Directed by Ranjit Tiwari, the film is a good example of wanting to do too much, without ever worrying about doing it authentically. Not all things add up in this film – especially the lack of suspicion directed towards a character when a body is found inside his car – but certain films can get over the finishing line by merely picking a template and sticking to it. That template in Cuttputli unfortunately is Kumar, who tries painfully to play honest policewala, nerd, action star, loving hunk and torn uncle at the same time.
At some point filmmakers have to start wondering if they want to tell stories or create half-assed star vehicles for men trying to grasp at too many things at the same time. The insecurity, the insincerity begins to show and on streaming where greater performances exist by the dozen, they will be called out. It’s particularly galling in the context of a plot that has promising angles and twists but feels uncommitted for the simple fact that it wants to establish a hero where perhaps none are needed.
Manik Sharma writes on art and culture, cinema, books, and everything in between.
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