Credit: Special Arrangement
‘Do Patti’ truly tries to play its cards right but it is no ‘hukum ka ikka’. In its assiduous desire to convey a message against domestic abuse, it not only takes cinematic liberties but also forgets its primary purpose — to tell a gripping story.
Kriti Sanon plays Saumya and Shailee — Seeta Aur Geeta with none of the latter’s cheek or wit. Saumya is a wilting rose while Shailee is your cardboard evil twin — both reside in a breathtakingly beautiful hill town and both promptly fall for the newbie rake Dhruv (Shaheer Sheikh) who is a big-time jerk. Local cop (who is also a lawyer) Vidya Jyoti (Kajol) smells a lot of unfunny happenings in their household and begins poking around.
So far so good and busy. But the movie soon becomes yawningly predictable. Worse, the last 15 minutes is a dour lecture on the many ills of domestic abuse. As important and relevant a topic as this is, the writing is too shallow to give any wallop to one’s guts.
Kajol is competent as the sincere cop, and Kriti is good in flashes — especially in the evil twin role. Shaheer Sheikh gets to flex his acting muscles, a good break from the asinine roles he is often forced to do on television. The movie does feel like an extended television soap, come to think of it, especially with the jarring ‘theme music’ for each character. Good to spot Tanvi Azmi and Vivek Mushran: both deserved more screen space.
Cut-off box - Do Patti
Rating: 2/5 Hindi (Netflix)
Director: Shashanka Chaturvedi
Cast: Kajol Kriti Sanon, Shaheer Sheikh