Kuttey Hindi Movie

Kuttey has all the ingredients that remind you of Vishal Bharadwaj's cinema, including corrupt cops, gangsters, a bounty, and many bounty hunters. But there is something missing in this movie. For one thing, there is hardly any humor, and almost every moment seems derivative. Mar 19, 2023 By Sreejith Mullappilly

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Aasmaan Bhardwaj's Kuttey has an extremely familiar story. Many gangs go after a van with plenty of cash, and each has their own reason to get there. The film begins with an analogy from Konkona Sen Sharma's naxalite that talks about how a dog is the most loyal animal. She tells Kumud Mishra's cop that he is like a dog, a servant to the system he is part of. He simply acts while someone else is pulling the strings.

But this analogy has little to do with the plot that follows the first scene. Arjun Kapoor and Kumud Mishra play corrupt cops who get themselves into trouble after they go overboard during a hit job. This puts them in a situation where they must find lakhs to bribe the higher-ups and bail themselves out of trouble. They approach Tabu's cop, Pammi Sandhu, for a way out of the mess they find themselves in. Pammi is another character in Kuttey with a "been-there, heard-that" kind of analogy. She tells Gopal (Arjun Kapoor) and Paaji (Kumud Mishra) the classic scorpion and frog story.

The moral of the scorpion and frog story has a lot more to do with the plot of Kuttey. The moral is that, like the scorpion, it is in the nature of humans to do something instinctively when they have their backs to the wall. Ashish Vidyarthi and Tabu laugh at the punchline of the joke, but the other two cops (and maybe even the audience) sit there with no expression.

A bit like his father, Vishal, Aasmaan Bhardwaj works with a script with a lot of Desi flavor. The movie has all the Vishal Bharadwaj ingredients, including corrupt cops, gangsters, a bounty on offer, and many bounty hunters chasing it. But there is something missing in this movie. For one thing, there is hardly any humor, and almost every moment seems derivative. Aasmaan Bhardwaj even uses the Kaminey background score for no reason other than to remind us of his nepotic background.

There is some decent acting in the film, though. Tabu and Kumud Mishra, especially, infuse some personality and energy into their characters. There are also some inspired bits, like the one where Arjun Kapoor sings a lullaby to his child as he discusses a loot job with his peers. But these moments are few and far between.

Kuttey is one of Hindi cinema's favorite words, especially since the Angry Young Man days of the 1970's. Phrases like "kuttey ki maut" (a dog's death), "kuttey ki aulat" (son of a dog), and "kuttey ki zindagi" (a dog's life) have been in Hindi films many times before. Creative liberties aside, dogs deserve more respect from Hindi cinema, definitely more than what the Aasmaan Bhardwaj film shows.