Katti Batti

Love stories often don't work when the people involved in them are ignorant as heck. Katti Batti tries to literally adapt one such story and on the way goes on to define absurdity. Most words and phrases used in this review are selected from the film's idiotic dialogs so that you get a better idea as to what to expect. For most of the part, a peppy, hip girl named Payal (Ranaut) who is a wandering rebel born to Page 3 celebrities who decided to go all the way on the backseat of a car during a drunken brawl, and who has more than 2500 friends on Facebook is brutally skirt-chased by a baby-faced Maddy (Khan) who makes pursuing architecture look like a short week of R&R, who has just about 500 friends on Facebook including 350 fake profiles that he does't know about, and who has an annoying sister. There is no conviction in the story as it adopts a fair non-linear screenplay. An introduction to the so-called quirky characters using a hand-held shot sequence is all there is to relish in the first half. The screenplay looks like it has been stitched together using a defunct sewing machine by a one-legged tailor with retina inflammation. There is humor if you look for it, but the slapstick is so bad my senses now have finally learned to smile at Kapil Sharma's jokes. Love is fine, relationships are fine, even breakups are fine, but you don't want to shell out money to watch grown ups behave like kids, now do you? One should blame the dodgy story for its construction and unbelievability factor for all we see is a mopey boyfriend and a courageous girlfriend who does not like being called a girlfriend. So lets call her a girlfriend just to annoy her. Ranaut is an active participant in the drama while her co-actor is just a bystander. Since you all have given her the license, she overacts a bit too much in the sequences that required silence. All other characters are running behind our male protag so that he can forget about this "girlfriend" who dumped him without a reason. And the reason for the breakup is stupid, considering we are in 2015, when you know it. All said and done, the film is surely high on creativity, but is highly low on cake on which this creativity should have been the icing. BOTTOM LINE: With a turtle called Milkha (the irony!), Nikhil Advani's Katti Batti is what you get when you take relationships too seriously and literally and make a film about it. Wait for DVD; but buy only when its price goes down to INR 49 on Amazon. And why not use the Mobikwik cashback offer on it? Grade: D- Can be watched with a typical Indian family? YES

Katti Batti is a romantic comedy by Nikhil Advani. In the beginning, it appears that the film is an attempt to explore the sweet-sour, love-hate relationship of the lead protagonists, who are in a live-in set up. But, later on the film moves to different domain explaining the reasons behind the katti Batti of the lead protagonists. Katti Batti are the words used by kids. Katti is the word used when kids fight and they decide that they would never talk to each other. Batti is the word which is used when the fight is dissolved and the decision to not speak to each other is not valid anymore. Nikhil explores the katti Batti of the lead protagonists. The Katti predominates in their relationship or finally Batti happens, that is for you to explore and watch. The frames keep moving from present to flash back. If the first half projected the romance between Imran and Kangana followed by their frequent fights and their relationship falling apart, second half is about Imran's pursuit to fetch her back. The film begins with Payal (Kangana Ranaut) and Madhav aka Maddy's (Imran Khan) sharing some fun moments and capturing the same in camera viz. Quirky manner of getting married by taking the round of fire lit in the waste, using sauce instead of sindur etc. These scenes definitely set the tone of the movie to be a very lighter one, but they don't generate much laughter. Very soon, we see Maddy being rushed to the hospital, who has drunk phenol because Payal has left him. His sister Koyal comes to meet him in the hospital, and she along with his friend Vinay takes him to hometown to his father Suneel Sinha. Koyal, though younger to him is very protective of him and takes authoritative approach. Both Koyal and Vinay persuade Maddy to forget Payal and move on in life. On Maddy's return to office (he is an architect), he finds that the whole office is sympathetic towards him due to his suicide attempt, courtesy Vinay. The frames in between move to the flash back to explain how it was love at first sight for Maddy. He fell in love with spunky Payal, her independent nature, quirky ways. He persistently followed her and expressed to her that he loves her. Payal transparently conveyed that she is not keen for any committed relationship; it would be just a time pass for her. Maddy was so much in love with her that he even agreed to her this attitude. Five years of live-in relationship - all sorts of doing crazy stuff together, madness and togetherness. But then a series of fights begin. Although the fights are not shown very evidently, these run in the background. Certain events turn the course of the relationship and Payal just vanishes from Maddy's life, goes away. In spite of Koyal and Vinay constantly asking Maddy to move on in life, he is not able to get over Payal. Koyal keeps reminding Maddy that he is not the perfect guy for Payal, there is a huge class difference between the two, Payal belonging to upper class and he to the middle class. Maddy is not ready to forget Payal, since somewhere he believes that Payal still loves him. Without knowing the whereabouts of Payal, he frantically starts contacting their common friends to know where she could be. Is Maddy able to locate her? If yes, how? Is he able to win her back? Do they dissolve their fight and say Batti to each other? How does Ricky (Vivaan) play his role in the movie? Does Ricky's presence help Payal and Maddy to reunite? Imran gets majority of the screen time. Payal gets less screen time in comparison to Imran, and this definitely is not her 'queen' performance. Lot of characters are fillers. Boss of Maddy keeps calling him and his friend Vinay as his Rama and Lakshmana. But he is hardly able to generate laughter. Some other fillers are characters of Deepika (Maddy's colleague), friends Tina, Shweta etc. One more character that of a tortoise is there and how it becomes part of the film, watch it. I wish, Suneel as Maddy' s father, a great actor, had some substantial role to play. Shankar Ahsaan Loy' music is ok. The Sufi song sung by the FOSLA band (Frustrated One Sided Lovers Association) is good. Cinematography is good. I wish, the screenplay could have been a bit gripping with good sense of humour blended with emotions. All of you may not like the movie, since it is not very high on entertainment quotient. You may like the movie for its last 30 minutes, if you are an emotional person and enjoy watching display of emotions on screen. I also felt that Nikhil took a safe approach to end the movie to show what actually sells emotionally. Overall, the film is OK. Katti Batti, although with not so gripping screenplay, fares alright with the story blended with emotions especially towards the end of the film.

Just Avoid This Movie ...