Looop Lapeta Hindi Movie

Feature Film | 2022
Critics:
Audience:
Looop Lapeta is the kind of thriller brimming with a sense of eccentricity and wit that you rarely see in Hindi cinema. It takes a while to get going, but once you figure out what the film is all about, the makers really let it rip. It is the sort of film where the main characters run a race against time.
Feb 5, 2022 By Sreejith Mullappilly

Where To Watch:
Streaming:
   Netflix

Looop Lapeta is the kind of thriller brimming with a sense of eccentricity and cracking wit that you rarely see in Hindi cinema. It takes a while to get going, but once you figure out what the film is all about, the makers really let it rip. It is the sort of film where the main characters run a race against time.


Tahir Bhasin's Satya loses a package with truckloads of money to deliver, which his boss, Dibyendu Bhattacharya's Victor, entrusted him with. Victor has all the makings of an evil boss. He quietly tells Satya the 'what if' scenario. But Satya loses the package and only has his girlfriend, Taapsee Pannu's Savi, to fall back on.


At the start, you only see this film as a run-of-the-mill affair. But at about the halfway point, something outrageous happens, and then you realize that it is not the movie you think it is. It is a pretext of a bizarre set of events that I cannot explain here because it constitutes the movie. Let us just say that you have a target in a game and get to have some cracks at it. One of the characters must get it right before she runs out of time.


The makers take an idea that we usually see in Hollywood movies, toy with it a bit and fumble along for a while before they run with it. Early on, we are told that Savina is an ex-athlete who could not quite make it. That sports background of Savina is nicely woven into the script. All the running that Taapsee Pannu does here is a metaphor for the constant trier that her character is. While some of Pannu's expressions and humorous scenes do not quite land, she marries the part with just enough physicality and eccentricity. Tahir Bhasin is also appropriately campy and funny as a man with a wicked sense of morality in a precarious situation.


Not everything works in Looop Lapeta. For instance, there is a silly stretch involving a cop who constantly chases Savi. At one point, the cop is on a Royal Enfield bike, and he still cannot still keep up with Savi on foot. I like the silliness of the whole thing, but the execution is a bit clumsy. There is Shreya Dhanwanthary as Julia, a bride with uncertainty about who to choose as her man. There is an idea of a universe where the main characters discuss the mythical story of Satyavan and Savitri that does not quite work. There is also a part with Rajendra Chawla as a jeweler with two sons who hatch a wicked plot. The stretch involving Chawla's character and his sons act as speed bumps in this otherwise racy thriller, but it offers some of the film's funniest moments nonetheless.


While the supporting characters and the screenplay do not make the film seem essential enough, Aakash Bhatia's filmmaking is really good. I guess the purpose of all those bit characters is to add to the quirky world of the movie. In that sense, it all works all right. Bhatia is good at world-building, does some really cool things with the visual grammar of the film and exerts a firm grip over the narrative. The cinematography here is not some sort of gimmick. It adds flavor and texture to the plot as well as makes the movie seem a touch otherworldly.


Looop Lapeta is based on Tom Tykwer's German film 'Run Lola Run'. I have not seen the original, so I cannot comment on how loyal it is to the German movie. But Looop Lapeta seems more in the mold of films like Ludo and Lootcase. The film is surely entertaining, but keep in mind that it is also a tad experimental.

Sreejith Mullappilly

   

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