Desi Kattey review: Suniel Shetty looks drawn, Ashutosh Rana catches the eye

Director: Anand Kumar

Small UP town. Powerful local ‘bahubali’. Gun-running ‘ganda dhanda’. Small kids growing up in a criminalised atmosphere to become gunslingers: each item gets ticked off in this hideously loud film.

Gyani (Jay Bhanushali) and Paali (Akhil Kapur) are best friends, and their ambition is to become crime lords under the mentorship of the big bad ‘ilaake ka dada’ (Ashutosh Rana). They are on track — killing people, spreading terror – till a spanner, in the shape of an ex-army officer (Sunil Shetty), shows up to lead the boys on to the straight and narrow.

The point of this kind of film is to be completely male-centric, guns-as-phallus, mine-is-bigger-than-yours. It also gives us a fittingly vulgar item number, and the two women ( Bajpai and Agha) are content to come way below the guys and guns. What it doesn’t do is to give us people we can watch : the two `desi’ boys play gamely with their ‘kattas’, and spray bullets,  but the acting is shockingly inept.

Sunile Shetty looks gray and drawn. The only one who catches the eye is Ashutosh Rana, who has done this kind of role before, but bites into it with relish, regardless. But even he isn’t worth the shattered ear-drums.

One star ( *)