Katti Batti: A Lost Opportunity

Katti Batti, as the name itself suggests is a movie playful in appearance and a pretty funky one at that. It is also pretty sweet and sassy, you know, the kind as the first gift from your first love affair. Each of the earlier scenes in this movie were very well thought of to build the story line and each element, was extremely well looked out for. Emotions gleamed out in the storytelling. But then, all is well that ends well, remember?

Fair game, I say.  I am pretty convinced that the motive of the script was to create art. Like the times we used to write essays in School English tests. And keeping in line with the newly made analogy, suddenly time would slap us and we would put our faculties on an alarmed mode, tediously trying to finish within the time allotted to us. Much like that, the second half of the story reeks of the writer’s sudden remembrance of time. He suddenly realized that he actually had to end the story and he just couldn’t go on and on for eternity.

The movie certainly had a magnetic charm to it in the beginning and the first half breezed through. It was funny, interesting and the plot was running smoothly. Suddenly the reality of time comes in and spoils the play. I would say that the entire blame couldn’t go to the writer. There was one too many flaws in editing as well. The movie had been creatively divided between cross-roads of the present and the past (the past comprising of the protagonist’s memories, of course). However, as we entered the second half, slowly all the fun had started fading away and a cheerful, sweet and lean storyline was starting to gain weight. This is the problem with most storylines these days. It all starts as fun and interesting but towards the end it just keeps getting dragged until it eventually ends, relieving the audience and their patience, which would have by then mostly run out.

Kangana Ranaut’s Payal could be used as a meter of the storyline. She was all glowing, full of promise at first but slowly, as the story progressed, she would die a dull, natural death (oops, spoilers!!!). Kangana Ranaut has set a benchmark with her acting in Queen and Tanu Weds Manu Returns and she couldn’t stick to that level here anymore. Of course she was a better actor here than Imran. Perhaps he is out of practice these days.

I write movie reviews but I still couldn’t decide which genre this movie should belong to. The makers say that it’s a RomCom but I am stuck with sitcom, drama, a mainstream Bollywood movie without a genre and even, in fact, a saucy music video like those of Yo Yo Honey Singh (whenever I write Honey Singh I feel this compulsion to write Yo Yo in front of it).

The script had a huge potential to be somewhat different from the hundreds of its contemporaries. It could certainly have made a huge impact and been a cult in film making like a Yeh Jawaani Hai Diwani if not a Sholay but somehow somewhere it gets lost in its purpose and ends up being a traditional Bollywood movie.

Acting: 2.5/5

Script: 2.5/5

Direction: 3/5

Overall: 2.75/5

Verdict: Watchable.

P.S: There are some twists in the story that even add to degrade the quality of the script and hints largely at several places, in bold black letters at its flaws. I feel sorry not being able to hold them up here since that would require me to give out all the spoilers, but I really want to. You see, it takes some effort to sit and find flaws. May be that could be done sometime later, when the movie would have reached its saturation point (I just coined this term, with a different meaning, one with respect to film-making, yeaah!!).

Until then, keep watching movies and reading reviews!