Star Cast: Ishaan Khatter, Ananya Panday, Jaideep Ahlawat, Annup Sonii, Satish Kaushik
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Director: Maqbool Khan
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What’s Bad: It reaches to a point where everything is sailing smooth and instead of being stable there, it shakes up things by being monotonous & it’s releasing with an incredibly useless plan by Zee Plex (this rant requires a separate article). Also, it wasted my headline of “Khaali Peeli Khaali Peeli Dekhna Ki Nahi” because it’s good
Loo Break: If you’re watching legally with Zee Plex, you wouldn’t be able to pause (or even rewind, fast-forward the film) & if you aren’t lawfully watching then just skip all the songs
Watch or Not?: If you’re investing 299 to watch it, then don’t. If you’re waiting for it to come under the premium Zee5 plan, then yes!
User Rating:
With a very filmy name Vijay Chauhan aka Blackie we see Ishaan Khatter marking his entry by exciting from a jail. His ‘chaavi’ AKA item AKA heroine Pooja (Ananya Panday) rushes the taxi towards him and asks him to sit before getting trapped by the goons following her. Taking us to the flashback, Blackie tells the story of that one night which lead both him and Pooja to the present day.
Continuing the non-linear storytelling, we get to know about both of their background stories explaining how they did up with each other. Blackie is on the run from Mumbai Police, and Pooja gets followed by her ‘relatives’ for breaking herself out from a former marriage. She gets into a partnership with Blackie as he’s John Abraham but with a taxi. They both need each other for escaping and what happens next shouldn’t surprise you much, but it comes with its fair share of entertainment.
Yash Kesarwani and Sima Agarwal’s script starts off exceptionally well. The first half is full of good chase sequences, performances and twists. The problem is, the second half also is full of good chase sequences, performances but not good enough twists. This just makes the whole process monotonous. Too many convincing plot-solving twists just kill the intrigue at times.
A special shoutout to Rameshwar S. Bhagat who has edited this film for one very brilliant scene. There’s this one split screen that is connected to look like one single scene. There have been few attempts at this in the past, but this one is so well polished. Adil Afsar’s cinematography is a half-baked attempt of capturing the melancholic feel of Mumbai at night, something achieved by C Vijayasri (cinematographer) in Ek Chalis Ki Last Local.
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If there would’ve been a bet to play on who has a secured future in Bollywood from the current-gen stars, it has to be Ishaan Khatter. Khaali Peeli does nothing but strengthens my belief of seeing him among the popular ones very soon. He his two films (Beyond The Clouds, Dhadak), one web-series (A Suitable Boy) and one Koffee With Karan performance old, still look at his filmography (apart from KWK). This was a test for him which he has cleared with a good score. He just fits into the ‘masala zone’ smooth AF. Being a tapori of Mumbai, he maintains the lingo and its attitude without tumbling a single time.
Ananya Panday is decent enough, but she carries the Alia hangover in most of her scenes which shouldn’t have been the case. I just wasn’t being able to get the thought of ‘how well Alia could’ve done this?’ throughout the film. But, definitely, an improvement for her from Pati, Patni Aur Woh and I just hope she gets a similar jump for her next.
I won’t even mind stereotyping Jaideep Ahlawat as a bad guy because he’s so good at it. He has the ‘born evil’ looks, and now it won’t be easy to see him as a good guy. A rare quality which is possessed by seasoned actors such as Ashish Vidyarthi, Ashutosh Rana and Yashpal Sharma.
Annup Sonii doesn’t get much to do, and he’s just there. Satish Kaushik is funny, but the problem is he could’ve been hilarious. His character had every scope of taking the humour to a different level, but unfortunately, nothing happens apart from a couple of well-timed jokes.
This is Maqbool Khan’s second film after the first one got released in 2011. With this, he proves he has the potential to handle a well-written masala film. Ali Abbas Zafar has produced this, and he has his shades all other the film. Ishaan’s character ages in a chasing scene – a perfect tribute to the golden era of Bollywood masala films. The script falters at places which affect the overall feel of the film. Maqbool tries to keep this as much ‘masaaledaar’ as possible without going way over the top. Also, he achieves a couple of extremely-well directed Mexican standoffs.
After impressing the hell out of me in Bajirao Mastani, Padmaavat, Kalank and War, the ‘Balhara Brothers’ Sanchit Balhara and Ankit Balhara are back with yet another adrenaline-pumping background score. Keeping the nostalgia of massy Bollywood films alive, they fusion it with the template of good Western music. None of the songs click, and all of them are unnecessary addition.
Khaali Peeli Movie Review: The Last Word
All said and done, Khaali Peeli is your typical Bollywood popcorn-munching, snack-binging movie. It’s a first one in this zone for a long time, and for that, it should be seen taking a break from the heavy atmosphere around.
Three stars!
Khaali Peeli releases on 02nd October, 2020.
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