Kartavya, the latest Netflix original movie directed by Pulkit, starts like a Paatal Lok kind of story, where a common man police officer is assigned a case that gives him insight into the kind of things happening within the system. The movie teases you with the possibility of it exploring a complex space. Unfortunately, the writing chooses to skip all that and focuses on the things the audience can see from a distance. With predictability and easy closures happening too blandly in the second half of the story, Kartavya ultimately becomes a disappointing experience.
SHO Pawan was given the security duty of a senior journalist who was doing an investigation on the crimes of this influential man named Anand Shri. Unfortunately, Pawan failed at his job, and the journalist was murdered in front of his eyes. A determined Pawan gets a 7-day window to find the culprits, and what we see here are his efforts to find the killer.
Backdrop of UP, a Godman-like figure, corrupt police, caste-based crimes; everything one can associate with a nuanced show is there in this one hour and forty minutes movie. When the film reveals the killer’s details early on, one would wonder how our hero will handle it. A parallel track of Pawan’s younger brother’s love affair is also there in the movie, and the ingredients for a disturbing social drama were right there in front of Pulkit. But after setting up all those things, the movie quickly shifts its tone. When certain characters change their tone and take up responsibilities and offer help, any moviegoer can sense the bad consequences of that action. However, this movie thinks or treats the audience who have subscribed to Netflix as if they have done so to watch their first-ever movie.
The very first scene of Kartavya itself has a basic action continuity issue in the edit. And that itself was such an off-putting thing for me, considering this is a Netflix original, produced by Shah Rukh Khan’s Red Chillies. With the help of the rustic frames of Anil Mehta, enhanced with those red and blue beacon lights, Pulkit was able to set the milieu for this movie. But as I said, the fact that the hero just can’t foresee any foul play, the audience can easily guess, makes the viewing experience a bit too frustrating. Even the result of the second track is something we can guess way before, and the movie does not even consider a different presentation of that scene to keep us interested in the development.
Saif Ali Khan’s UP accent is not that bad. Even though at times we can sense that it is not something that naturally comes to him, he was able to portray the emotional dilemma of Pawan most sincerely. Rasika Duggal, as the wife character, hardly has anything there that feels challenging. Sanjay Mishra gets a lengthy character in the film. But the trajectory of Ashok was very familiar. Manish Chaudhari’s UP accent at times felt a bit too artificial. Zakir Hussain plays the role of Pawan’s casteist father. Saurabh Dwivedi of Lallantop plays the role of the villain of the movie Anand Shri. He was struggling to find the pitch of the character, and the lack of confidence was evident in his shaky eyes. Editor Zubin Sheikh was trying his best to save Dwivedi by cutting to reaction shots of others and also using wide shots. But in a pool of good actors, even a few seconds of bad acting sticks out like a sore thumb. Yudhvir Ahlawat as Harpal delivered a really memorable performance.
By scrapping all the possibilities it had to portray social realities disturbingly and effectively, Kartavya fails in its duty to provide a moving cinematic experience. Somewhere, flawed creations like these actually give us an idea of why writing of shows like Paatal Lok and Khorra are phenomenal because of their nuanced approach that respected the subject and the intelligence of the audience. If Sudip Sharma’s shows are too complicated for you, Pulkit’s Kartavya works like a foundation course.
