Tedious whodunit watch Starring: Akshay Kumar, Rakulpreet Singh, Chandrachur Singh, Sargun Mehta Rating: 2* It seems like Akshay K...
Tedious whodunit watch
Starring: Akshay Kumar, Rakulpreet Singh, Chandrachur Singh, Sargun Mehta
Rating: 2*
It seems like Akshay Kumar is having a torrid time trying to touch the audience’s hearts. Otherwise, how is it that all films being churned out of the Akshay Kumar factory of late are falling like nine pins? Not only that, Akki is doing films that don’t seem to suit him. Despite trying hard and underplaying his part to succeed somewhat, yet “Cuttputtli” is a tedious and weary watch. When the superb original “Raktsanan” (2018) is there on OTT and when its dubbed Hindi version “Gumnaam” also released on Friday, why will anyone bother to waste time on a remake and that too on OTT. What’s more galling is that the Akshay starrer is a scene-to-scene, dialogue-to-dialogue copy of the original, barring its songs. So what’s new?
Akshay plays a 36-year-old Arjan Sethi who wants to become a filmmaker of thrillers and so does research on serial killers. Instead, he becomes an SI in Kasauli (Himachal Pradesh) on the behest of his sister Seema (well played by Hrishitaa Bhatt in the little screen time she has) and his brother-in-law Narinder (Chandrachur Singh leaving a mark).
He joins the police station under a
no-nonsense SHO Gudiya Parmar (a confident Sargun Mehta). Then school kids start
going missing along with their bodies being found two days after their
abduction and with a mutilated head of a Cinderella doll as clues. Arjan starts
gathering information that this is a work of a serial killer following a
particular pattern. But the theory is dismissed by SHO Parmar. However, with
the body count rising on a regular basis, she is forced to take Arjan’s theory
seriously. Helping in Arjan’s quest is a school teacher Payal (a stunning but
nothing much-to-do Rakulpreet Singh).
Director Ranjit M Tewari tries hard to do justice but falters at the climax. The film wearily meanders (134 minutes) on and by the time the climax comes, it is a huge letdown and looks very hurried. Unlike the original where the killer and cop indulged in an edge-of-the-seat cat and mouse game, “Cuttputtli” just falls flat here.
“Cuttputtli” disappoints despite having great potential to be a landmark thriller. And yes, this is for all Akshay fans - it’s high time Akshay starts choosing roles suited to his age otherwise his future looks bleak.
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