movie reviews

Cuttputlli Movie Review: Not Just Akshay Kumar, Even We Deserve A Break From The Tsunami Of His Fast-Tracked Lethargic Films; Consider This A Request

September 2, 2022

335 5 minutes read

Cuttputlli Movie Review Rating:

Star Cast: Akshay Kumar, Rakul Preet Singh, Sargun Mehta, Chandrachur Singh, Hrishitaa Bhatt

Director: Ranjit M Tewari

Cuttputlli Movie Review Ft. Akshay Kumar ( Photo Credit – A Still From Cuttputlli )

What’s Good: Sargun Mehta trying to school Akshay Kumar to stop doing what he is, exactly like we want to.

What’s Bad: How everything is shaped to celebrate Akshay and his saviour complex.

Loo Break: Stay in there and watch some YouTube videos or a true crime show on streaming. That will definitely be worth it.

Watch or Not?: At this point Akshay Kumar is only looking at quantity, giving quality the ultimate side-eye. Maybe it’s time you do the same and tell him we deserve better.

Language: Hindi (with subtitles)

Available on: Disney+ Hotstar

Runtime: 135 Minutes

User Rating:

So in a small town in the North of India, a psychopath serial killer is on loose and there is no information about him. Enters Akshay Kumar who is a writer turned police officer who in no time busts the case. That’s the story! Yes.

Cuttputlli Movie Review Ft. Akshay Kumar ( Photo Credit – A Still From Cuttputlli )

Cuttputlli Movie Review: Script Analysis

Akshay please scream louder than that uncomfortable car scene if someone is forcing you to do these films. Because no other explanation can defend these choices with no substance and a boring fanfare that lead to nothing. How many more duds till we finally get a good one, Mr. Khiladi? But of course, he isn’t at fault entirely because there are more people equipped by a producer who kind of believe in this Tinkle comic of a film.

Dialogue and Screenplay by Aseem Arora or the loopholes in it make Cuttputlli a supremely tiring watch. Said to be an unofficial remake of Ratsasan, I haven’t seen the original so won’t draw comparisons. But if that one was similar, I am more curious to know, that no one stopped people from investing money in this paper-thin script for the second time. There is convenience, lethargy, and amateur filmmaking written all over this film.

Every plot twist is convenient to start the next within seconds and nothing concretely connects them. The lethargic approach at this point is so visible that it appears like a school play where kids kind of try to plug in ways that the next scene becomes easy to get in. For example, just when Rakul tells Akshay a clue about the killer, the killer appears in front of him. He has no business being there, but who cares? Remember the school play approach?

Let’s not even get into details and just analyze the surface. Akshay Kumar is a film writer and wants to make thrillers. He gives the weirdest narrations to a producer for an actor who has hundreds of movies in his kitty. But what is problematic is the turn that comes post this. Brace yourselves, he becomes a police officer without any formal training, qualifying process, or even basic skills. The reason given is he gets posted in his father’s place. I don’t think so that’s is how this works, team.

And you thought the next 2 hours will make any sense. They are only a mix-and-match of all the suspense/murder thrillers you might have seen. An empathetic back story to the killer with a disorder. Multiple murders and tons of cosplay later a showdown with Kumar who suddenly knows how to fire a gun after admitting he doesn’t like it a week ago as per the film timeline. It’s hilarious how filmmakers now write films to worship Akshay Kumar and celebrate him by the end regardless of everything else.

While the film tries too hard to make bullying and harassment at schools a topic, it only kills it with its comical plot points. Like Akshay is born in London never to be mentioned again, an SHO explains a case like a teacher to her senior officer like he has joined service 5 minutes ago, Akshay touches all possible evidence without gloves. I can go on.

Cuttputlli Movie Review: Star Performance

Akshay Kumar at this point only changes his get-up and is the same man in every single movie barring Raksha Bandhan. The rush he shoots his films with is now visible and there is no continuity to how he plays his characters. Did I tell you how unconvincingly he cries in this one? Cringe.

Except for Sargun Mehta for exactly 5 minutes, every woman in this world exists just to equip Akshay to be a one-man army, because officers with years of experience clearly know nothing. Rakul Preet tries to make sense of this all when the styling department decides to give her a saree with a two-piece blouse making her look entirely a mismatch to the setup. This is a small town.

The film literally forgets everyone in the last 15 minutes because how else will you highlight Akshay Kumar if Sargun Mehta is acting better in the frame?

Cuttputlli Movie Review Ft. Akshay Kumar ( Photo Credit – A Still From Cuttputlli )

Cuttputlli Movie Review: Direction, Music

Ranjit M Tewari needs to asses his project from a wider angle and look at the loopholes and problems. If his idea of making a ‘mass’ movie is suddenly teleporting his lead pair to a foreign location dancing in leather pants and sequin clothes in a movie that is about a serial killer and abuse towards children, then may God save this genre.

Music does nothing to this product in any way. The camera department makes it even more obvious that this movie could have been shot in Alibaug and that might have not affected the screenplay even a bit. Because the town has no character or metaphor to add to this movie at all.

Cuttputlli Movie Review: The Last Word

I don’t want to be this rude, I love cinema. But Akshay Kumar and his urge to churn out zillion movies in a year has now started making us fear his content, and that is definitely not a good space. Smell the tea creators, before it’s too late.

One star!