Do Patti movie review: Shallow Kajol-Kriti Sanon film fails to deliver on its promise

There’s enough here for a juicy, substantive drama. But the unpacking turns more into an unravelling, mainly because the writing is shallow, and the characters lack depth. This is disappointing, given that Dhillon had come up with the deliciously wicked ‘Phir Aayi Haseen Dilruba’ just a few months back.

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Kriti Sanon’s double act — helpfully described as ‘Seeta aur Geeta’, just in case we miss it — seems to have been created solely for the actor to show us that she can do both docile-and-wanton. Yes, she can, and Sanon does build on the promise she had shown in ‘Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya’, especially in the gleefully demented climactic scene in which she steals the film. But Saumya’s presence, giving off a thick-kohl-eyed-Deepika Padukone-’Cocktail’ vibe, feels like a force-fit into a film which wants to talk about domestic abuse.

 

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Kajol’s VJ is given a slo-mo running-to-the-spot-of-the-alleged-crime hero’s entry, but this isn’t ‘Singham’. Her track has a trusted colleague, played by the solid Brijendra Kala, coming off as a hanger-on: one moment the duo is wandering around hilly roads; in another they find themselves in a neighbouring state, chasing a tip-off, without taking any kind of permission. And then, without missing a beat, VJ swivels from being a cop to a lawyer to a face-reading cracker-of-case. How is all this to be taken seriously?

I expected much more from this Kajol-Kriti-Kanika collaboration.

Do Patti movie cast: Kajol, Kriti Sanon, Shaheer Sheikh, Tanvi Azmi, Brijendra Kala, Vivek Mushran
Do Patti movie director: Shashanka Chaturvedi
Do Patti movie rating: 1.5 stars