Sumeet_Pradhan

Kathal is a satirical social commentry that allusions to social ills like casteism, patriarchy and messed up priorities of administration.

The plot is about theft of two jackfruits from a MLA's bungalow that gets linked to kidnapping of a lower caste girl and how a lady police inspector with her team handles the case.

The plot is well intended and is grounded but issue with the movie is that it is too inconsistent. The initial part of the movie is little too farcical with a loud BGM and some over the top acting by police and reporters, especially in the scene where the police arrives at MLA house. Thankfully, the middle portion gets back on track before the climax "fight" again turning too comical.

Scenes involving Vijay Raaz and the MLA family is perhaps the best thing about the movie. The part about police team led by Sanya Malhotra is somewhat inconsistent with some scenes even reminding of the TV serial FIR. Rajpal Yadav is occasionally too loud while Raghuveer Yadav in his cameo is just about okay.

Overall a decent movie intended for direct to OTT release.

We as audience often accuse movies for stereotyping things and yet we ourselves expect stereotypical movies. Just because the story has a "chudail" element associate with it, it ought not be a horror movie. Bulbbul is not a horror movie (in the usual sense) and if you are planning to watch it because of its horror genre, you would be disappointed. Netflix too has to take some blame because the trailer gives a wrong impression about the movie's genre.

Bulbbul is a movie set in late 19th century Bengal. The story is about a girl who is married into a rich Thakur family as a child, her ordeals as the "badi bahu" of the mansion and how she reacts to it. In parallel, there is a story about a supposed chudail in the forest nearby who is blamed for series of murders occurring around the mansion. No prize guessing the link between the two. As mentioned in the beginning, the story is less about horror element. It is more of a feminist commentary on the patriarchal society.

Tripti Dimri has a very mystical screen presence, expressing a lot though her smiles and eyes. (Though her dialogue delivery is not tested much here). The sets and cinematography are aptly vibrant (without being vulgarly overdone) with lots of colour hues. The narrative is engaging enough with three different timeline running intermixed with each other. But the problem is with the climax.

Such a story would typically three options as climax: 1) A "real" world ending that does away with supernatural element, 2) An ending that reasserts the supernatural elements of the movie, or 3) An ambiguous ending that leaves it to interpretation of the audience. This movies has gone forward with one of the extreme case but unfortunately the treatment is more like that of the other extreme. Perhaps the makers felt that the sympathy for the concerned protagonist needs to be reasserted. Moreover, the climax appears a bit rushed.

I wish I could had given it a higher rating but the climax let it down.

I found this movie to be one of the weakest by Hrishikesh Mukherjee.

It starts on a promising note. The infatuation of school girls with movie stars is aptly captured with Jaya Bhaduri nailing it as a bubbly teenage girl. The scene where the girls meet Dharamendra for the first time is done well.

Unfortunately, the movie loses steam in the second half when the story shifts to Bombay. Since the script uses real life movie stars as part of the story, it has the onus of being politically correct to depict all the film personalities as perfect idealizations. After a point, the preoccupation of script with flattering of the stars derails the narrative.