PLOT
Kuttey recounts the history of a few small-scale Mumbai gangs. These gangs are motivated to commit crimes by a desire for big sums of money.
It touches on a wide range of subjects, including the Maoist uprising, rogue police officers, and the Mumbai underworld.
REVIEW
With its frequent temporal overlaps and abrupt perspective changes, Kuttey periodically cools off its blistering speed and approaches being a relevant remark on a universe turned upside down by human greed, perfidy, and desperation. For this end, the parallels it offers focus mostly on how animals behave in the wild.
As a police officer, Tabu is once more out there to get praise for portraying a role that sets her apart from other masculine figures. She adds the much-needed lightheartedness to this otherwise grim story of blood and gore. With his gun-happy antics and sincere acting, Arjun manages to charm. His character sketch had several facets, one of which was that he was depicted as religious and fasted on Tuesdays before going on a shooting rampage at a pool party.
Mishra has a lot of opportunities to excel. He is highly believable in each scenario and allows his actions to speak for him. Both Radhika Madan and Shardul Bhardwaj contributed little and had very little to do. One of the most powerful characters, Khobre, played by Naseeruddin Shah, is rendered irrelevant in the plot and just disappears when his character ought to have played a major part. Ashish Vidyarthi, too, had his talent underutilized in just two scenes. Like Laxmi, Konkona Sen Sharma excels and could use more nuance. Somehow, that song felt a little hurried.
The background music in Kuttey shines out among this eclectic group of performers. Each song on Vishal’s album with lyrics by Gulzar Sahab seems to fit the narrative well and only serves to advance it.
Arjun Kapoor is arguably the weakest actor in the movie, but seasoned actors like Tabu, Naseeruddin Shah, Kumud Mishra, and others make up for his flaws.
Despite a formulaic plot, the movie is a great joy to watch because of its political overtones and references making fun of mainstream TV media, which were muted before the movie’s release.
Rating – Three out of five stars.
Only a small portion of metro area multiplex viewers will be drawn to the movie at the box office. The movie’s director is Aasmaan Bhardwaj. It is made by Vishal Bhardwaj Films, T-Series Films, and Luv Films.
The movie’s ensemble cast includes Tabu, Arjun Kapoor, Naseeruddin Shah, Radhika Madan, Konkona Sen Sharma, Kumud Mishra, and Shardul Bhardwaj. On January 13, 2023, it was presented in theaters. The same OTT platform’s launch date hasn’t been formally announced.
