Review: “Kuttey” Struggles to Balance What It Is with What It Wants to Be

There are several clear similarities between Aasmaan Bhardwaj’s Kuttey and his father’s Kaminey. Both thrillers strive to merge tense violence and quirky comedy, and aside from the “Dhan Te Nan” background score, Kuttey is even divided into chapters, right down to a prologue and an epilogue, like Pulp Fiction.

The dualism in Kuttey manifests through two-faced policeman, if Kaminey’s twin brothers winked at the mistaken identity narrative from classic Bollywood movies.

But in contrast to Kaminey, which began with a dynamic chase sequence that was perfectly in line with its general mood, Kuttey’s opening scene is sombre: a heated discussion about “azaadi” between an incarcerated Naxalite named Laxmi (Konkana Sensharma) and a timid cop named Paaji (Kumud Mishra). Azaadi is playing in the background as Laxmi and her companions march under a red sky following the killing of the police officers.

By the conclusion, Kuttey doesn’t make you think of Kaminey (an enjoyable crime thriller), but rather of Rangoon (an inert and uneven film), right down to the shoddy final CG, when blood pours in rapid spurts like a water gun going mad during Holi. But in a movie that should have remembered a famous Tarantino quote, you at least get some commitment from somewhere: “Are you going to bark all day, little doggie, or are you going to bite?”