By Murtaza Ali Khan
Featured in IMDb Critic Reviews
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| Katti Batti - By Nikhil Advani |
IMDb Ratings: 5.6
Genre: Comedy | Romance
Cast: Kangana Ranaut, Imran Khan
Country: India
Language: Hindi
Runtime: 135 min
Color: Color
Summary: A romantic comedy that follows Maddy and Payal's live-in relationship until a sudden turn of events creates a distance between them.
Katti Batti, directed by Nikhil Advani and starring Kangana Ranaut and Imran Khan in the lead roles, proves
to be quite an underwhelming experience. The movie over promises but terribly
under delivers. It's the last thing an actress like Kangana Ranaut needed
amidst the golden run she has been enjoying for quite some time now. Katti
Batti comes across as a failed rocket launch wherein the rocket could never
really make a takeoff. The only good thing about the movie perhaps is Imran
Khan who tries his level best to put life into something starkly lifeless. Unfortunately,
the non-linearity of the narrative fails to make up for the lack of meat in the movie's
storyline.
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| Kangana Ranaut in Nikhil Advani's Katti Batti |
Meaningless plot twists are introduced so conveniently as if
intended to insult the intelligence of the viewer. Of late, Kangana Ranaut has
established herself as the thinking man's actress but there is little cerebral
about her drab turn in Katti Batti. In addition to the absence of a cinematic
logic, the movie also appears quite weak in terms of aesthetics. The movie
fails to examine the social or moral implications of a live-in relationship in modern-day
India. All the movie proves to be is a syrupy tale of shallow and superfluous emotions.
The drama and suspense elements seem rather forced and only add to the viewer's
annoyance.
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| Imran Khan in Nikhil Adavni's Katti Batti |
Plainly speaking, Katti Batti is devoid of any substance. The movie
heavily relies on the use of gimmicks as a convenient substitute for organic
storytelling. Nikhil Advani's blunt direction fails to give any flow to the
shoddy material at hand. Except for the final few scenes, Imran Khan and
Kangana Ranaut fail to exude any romantic chemistry. Katti Batti, in a
nutshell, is a mishmash of ideas which lack both coherence and structure. The
only respite for the fans of Kangana Ranaut is that she continues to look like
a Barbie Doll thanks to the lovely costumes she gets to wear in the movie; those
looking after her wardrobe certainly need to be commended.
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| A Still from Katti Batti |
Overall,
Katti Batti serves as half-baked cinematic product, lacking in terms of vision
as well as execution. The subject of live-in relationships in the modern Indian
society has all the ingredients of becoming a hot seller but, alas, the
unimaginative treatment of the subject in Katti Batti leaves one utterly
disappointed. While Shankar Ehsaan Loy’s music fails to inspire, Maahir Zaveri deserves
a special mention the brilliant show in the editing department. Also, there is
nothing exceptional about Tushar Kapoor’s cinematography. The movie borrows
heavily from one or two Hollywood films (naming them would be tantamount to
leaking major spoilers; contrary to the speculations, 500 Days of Summer is not
one of them). Katti Batti is not actually a bad choice if you are merely looking
for an activity to pass your time but it is far from being a compelling movie viewing
experience.
Readers, please feel free to share your views/opinions in the comment box below. As always your feedback is highly appreciated!
References:
References:
Katti Batti (2015) Trailer (YouTube)
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Alas I had expectations from this one :(
ReplyDeleteSame here... but it left me cold!
ReplyDeleteThe problem with Indian cine-goers is not just that Bollywood has comprehensively ruined our collective cine-taste but that even among connoisseurs the inability to connect our reality with the best of world productions is openly & painfully evident. We were simply unable to connect our latest passion for building smart cities with the super efficient but derelict construct of Ridley Scott's genius vision of the city of the future, as depicted in "Blade Runner" where everything is under a command but nothing is in control! Even the most educated amongst us failed to relate to the fact that the movie 🎬 was made just two short of a year universally made famous by a British born in India in a book 📚 about watching, surveillance, invasion of privacy , targeting individuals, scrutinizing them, interrogating them, questioning their right to independence, dictating to them the terms of their life & living. Most enlightened Indians have heard of the book " 1984 " even if they haven't read it and all of them are familiar with the phrase "big brother is watching you" and yet they will not see , pun intended, the fine twist in the "Blade Runner" opening with the metaphor of pupil watching, pupil inspection , pupil analysis, which metaphor Ridley Scott expands, nay stretches to breaking 👉 point, ending with Harrison Ford's pupil stare at the audience when he sees an origamic unicorn drop off the woman he insists must say she loves him, must say she trusts him, when she may well be ori-gaming him! And in-between somewhere in this amazing film 🎥 about seeing and blindness where the master is apparently watching the pupil created by him, in an amazing reversal the pupil punctures his master's pupils to create bloody orifices where the pupils were once in their sockets.Who is master who pupil aka slave aka replicant aka surrogate is the real chaser in this 1982 film 🎥 of great significance and signification to all of us today, but we are likely to miss the intent if we fail to understand that more surveillance and more command only leads to more crime and less control of it !
ReplyDeleteWow... Sir, what a profound and insightful analysis of a multifaceted work of cinematic art! I am just speechless at this point in time :-)
ReplyDeleteThank you 😊 Murtaza! In 1982 , the year "Blade Runner" 🎥 was released I was working with a few excellent American collaborations in the Indian automotive industry and among other things that I did there I had launched a film 🎥 society I called CINE-ACTION 🎬 for the top management @ head quarters in Hauz Khas. My firm belief was that our management team would only gain from the consumer insights provided by great film 🎥 makers of the world which was much needed at the time when the Japanese had been invited by our country to launch the Maruti-Suzuki aka the Maruti-800. Maruti-Suzuki simply revolutionised our auto industry and with their ike bana miniaturisation cultural underpinnings held out hope for our industrial economic social revival and growth dynamism by virtue of their small smart fuel ⛽ efficient car 🚗 in the face of a 200% increase in fuel ⛽ prices in that era of energy shortages. Not miraculously but by strategic dint India's middle class boomed and bloomed - a phenomena that Prez.Obama believes is the future way forward for the world...which is, grow the middle class outward rather than growing top down 👇 or bottom up...and so I believe in the early eighties it is the Japanese who held out hope for us by creating our modern middle class. THIS IS REFLECTED IN THE MOVIE 🎬 "BLADE RUNNER 🏃" - NOT THE CREATION OF THE INDIAN MIDDLE CLASS WITH JAPANESE HELP BUT THE JAPANESE SELLING OF HOPE AROUND THE WORLD IN WHAT APPEARS IN THE MOVIE 🎬 AS HOPELESSLY DESTINED! But, ofcourse, there is a twist here as is everywhere in this brilliant film 🎥 shot 💉through & through by a myriad ironies. The Japanese hope-sell is all in the billboards, in the advertising in the form of a pill 💊 for all ailments, while on the ground origamic miniaturization has been hijacked by what appears to be the Latino-Spanish known for their actions of extreme cruelty, the infamous inquisitions, the colonial genocidal dominance that in this film 🎥 becomes the crushing of the human spirit into infantile diminutive ori-gamic shapes twisted into possessable ownable shelf decorative acquisitions totally under the master's control! Which is Ridley Scott's vehement expression of the terrifying question: with globalisation whither socio-cultural symbiogenesis ? What if the liberating art of one culture falls into the bad 👎 lands & worse hands of another? In Ridley Scott's talented hands, ofcourse,that becomes a riddle!
ReplyDelete