By this time you would have already read many highly appreciative, enthusiastic and spirited reviews, posts and tweets about KAI PO CHE which means ‘a call of triumph’ in Gujarati. The phrase is mostly heard in kite flying when one cuts the other person’s kite in the sky fight. And in the film it represents the triumph of love, friendship and emotions over the evil present in all of us without any exception.
But here unfortunately you are not going to find the same kind of praises showered upon the film all over, as I honestly didn’t find it anything close to a classic or masterpiece made on the lines of DIL CHAHTA HAI, 3 IDIOTS, ROCK ON or ZINDAGI NA MILEGI DOBARA. In a simple one line review it is just a good film made lovingly with some impressive performances and that’s it. Because in actual terms KAI PO CHE is not able to present all those heavy sequences of historical references with a highly emotional, moving or transforming impact as required or expected.
Being an adaptation of a Chetan Bhagat novel called “The 3 Mistakes Of My Life”, the film had its own section of viewers and appreciators already familiar with the writer and his self discovered style. But for a common viewer unaware of the name and the success enjoyed by his famous novels, the film doesn’t rise above the level of a decent watch well supported by a simplistic direction, fine cinematography and a meaningful climax bringing back the dark memories of Gujarat in the years of 2001 and 2002.
Beginning on a young note KAI PO CHE has got everything going in a cool friendly manner in its first 30 minutes offering an intelligent blend of friendship, cricket and silent religious differences in a locality. The narration keeps progressing realistically but there are neither any major story developments nor any exciting enjoyable moments until we are shown the 2001 earthquake just before the intermission. Here another strange point to be mentioned is that the film reaches it midpoint even before the completion of one hour which makes you feel quite odd checking your watches or phones.
Post intermission, it fast gets into the mold of an emotional, political and ambitious story of 3 friends caught in the situational web caused by the Gujarat riots of 2002. Now at this particular point, when one gets to know that its all heading towards those tense moments dangerously, it becomes pretty obvious that you start expecting an explosive never before kind of climax with something novel or path breaking. But sadly nothing of that sort happens on the screen and the film ends on a thoughtful note subtly showing the riots and those ugly moments of the past without any hard hitting sequence or a powerful punch.
Putting it honestly, while watching the film, I remembered one famous saying in Hindi, “Patli Gali Se Nikal Gayi” which aptly defines the film as far as its depiction of those historical moments is concerned. Whether it was the deadly, shattering earthquake of 2001 or the avoidable brutal killings of 2002, KAI PO CHE just touches those issues in some soft scenes and moves forward with its basic storyline to end it all hurriedly. Particularly I simply couldn’t understand the earthquake scene when the 3 friends instead of looking after the safety of others and their families, straight away run to see the state of their bought shop in a mall, quite weirdly. May be Abhishek Kapoor (the director) opted this way to avoid all those censor issues and objections. But whatever the case might be, I really was not convinced at all in the manner he visualized the two major shocking incidents in the recent history of the country so leniently.
On the casting front, it is no doubt a brave and visionary attempt by Abhishek to make his next project after the successful ROCK ON with all fresh faces in the lead. Thankfully the gamble played here works big time, as almost the entire cast comes up with a good show resulting in a fine film in the end. And that’s really nothing short of an achievement made in the present times of Star-lead movie business. Sushant Singh Rajput performs his role of a Cricket instructor effortlessly and Amit Sadh plays his multi dimensional character with the right intensity. But the pick of the lot remains Rajkumar Yadav who once again proves the versatility in him as a complete actor along with Amrita Puri who plays it naturally as his love interest.
In the supporting cast Manav Kaul is truly brilliant together with Asif Basra playing the rivals. Plus Digvijay Deshmukh (Ali) also deserves full marks for his splendid portrayal of the learning kid. Musically the soundtrack becomes likable while you are watching the film with only few songs having some relevant lyrics. But a straight winner as seen in director’s last ROCK ON was evidently missing. On the other side background score rightly provides the variety as needed in its diverse sequences.
Talking about the most important and relevant question raised in the second half of the film, I remember a comment received from a fellow reader a few days back in which he said that, Why we like or cheer for a thief or a bad character in a film who successfully makes fool of our Police or manages to run away from them in the end like in the recent SPECIAL 26?
Now the answer to this question is that we all humans have both the features of a good and bad man together buried deep down in our subconscious which differs in percentages in various people. While watching a bad character winning the game on the screen, this dark hidden part of our inner psyche gets activated and we love him running away or clap for his intelligently completed heist fooling the police. Interestingly KAI PO CHE also indicates towards this ugly side of our persona only which suddenly comes out in tense situations like communal riots or mob attacks. In such situations when there is a very rare possibility of being caught and one gets the complete freedom to commit serious crimes like killing or looting. At these crucial moments only suddenly many of us blindly join that riot or mob giving away to our anger, revenge or rage turning ourselves into some unsocial beasts hungry for blood. KAI PO CHE exactly talks about this only in this final half an hour but I really wish it had tacked the subject more boldly and intensely by spending more time on it in the end. Yet in its present version, the film at least tries to do something new moving ahead than all those usual romantic dramas or mindless comedies.
To wrap it up after the recent DAVID this was the second movie for which I found some deliberate praising going on by the Industry people themselves, even before its official release. Probably this is their newly found formula to bring in that much needed crowd in the first 3 important days at the box office. Anyway KAI PO CHE is much above DAVID being a sweet film based on friendship, cricket, politics and life. But don’t expect any classic trendsetting project here as stated by its forcibly created hype all around.
Rating : 3 / 5
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