Ranjit M. Tewari’s adaptation of the Tamil-language serial killer crime thriller Ratsasan (2018), which released on Disney + Hotstar today, has Akshay Kumar in a refreshingly non-superhuman role. That’s the film’s only novel element. The oldest storytelling trick in serial killer dramas is to build momentum for a final twist or final reveal. But this sub-genre of crime thrillers has had such sophisticated narratives in its history, both in literature and cinema, that a skeletal story concerned with just a police investigation and where it leads the police team ought to have no enduring appeal. That’s the kind of limitation and banality that afflicts Cuttputtli.
Arjan Sethi (Akshay Kumar), an aspiring filmmaker, unsuccessfully tries to sell a serial killer script to film producers for seven years before giving up on that dream and joining the police force in Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh, where his sister and her family also live. Soon after he joins as sub-inspector, a series of gruesome murders shakes up the sleepy town—all executed with the same modus operandi, the killer leaving behind the same signature every time. Arjan happens to know something about the psychology of serial killers because of his background, and after initial resistance from his boss, SHO Gudiya Parmar (Sargun Mehta), decides to take him on as an investigating officer on the case. A clinically agreeable and affable schoolteacher Divya (Rakul Preet Singh) is Arjan’s love interest—the perfect alibi for the director and his writers Tushar Trivedi and Aseem Arrora to put in a song or two for the rote Bollywood format to work.
The screenplay doesn’t have enough nuance or enough interesting red herrings to elevate the suspense in a way that also elevates characterisation. Characters are cardboard, there are no surprises, nuances or complexity to any of the suspects. Similarly, there are no dimensions to Arjan either except that he wants to do the right thing and his interest in serial killers just keep him going. We know nothing of Arjan’s past, what intrigues him about serial killers. For a man whose passion is serial killers, Arjan is astonishingly anodyne and goody-goody.
The setting, a hill station, is predictable for a crime thriller, but it contributes nothing to the story. The cinematography by Rajeev Ravi appears heavily colour-corrected and lacks the atmospheric notes that could have added gravitas and mystery to it. When, finally, Arjan gets to his target, it satisfies just one level of curiosity in the viewer: The basic who and the why.
The cast has a functional, uninspired energy about them—Kumar’s character has a realistic vibe unlike most of his other roles which valorise him, and yet, he channels Arjan with a straight-jacketed do-gooder approach. Singh is pretty; not much else can be said about her.
Cuttputlli has such a straight, simple arc—it suffers from too much of staidness for a story that hinges on a psychotic killer. There’s no inventiveness in plotting, characterisation or atmospherics. What remains is a point at which a murder happens and then a straight, neat line taking it to a revealing climax. Undoubtedly, it’s one of the most vapid, vanilla serial killers films I’ve ever watched.
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