Kathal: A Jackfruit Mystery, a frivolous comedy film

Productions from around the world are being streamed on Netflix, but what is worrying for the world’s most popular OTT platform is that productions from India, its biggest market, are being streamed on the platform. It appears to be superficial and of low quality. In recent years, only a few quality productions from Indian producers have been seen on Netflix, not even ten percent. On the contrary, the ratings of the productions of the USA, South Korea, UK, Spain, Colombia, Mexico, Canada, France, Poland, Japan, Germany, Italy, China, and Russia are much better. India’s number has come down considerably in this list. This is due to continuous substandard production.

The film under our review today is also based on a superficial central idea which is a surprise for the audience to be shown on Netflix. We’re talking, Kathl. A jackfruit mystery, of course. The cast of which includes Sania Malhotra, Vijay Raaz, Rajpal Yadav, Raghubir Yadav, and Brijendra Kala, but watching the film, one wonders at the director’s guts with utter dismay, how he made a wasteful film. Unsuccessfully tried to spread the story over an hour and 55 minutes duration and wasted the audience’s time.

First, let’s talk about the story.
Two Jackfruit, worth barely three hundred rupees, are stolen from the tree of MLA’s (Vijay Raz) mansion. Now the entire police force starts searching for these two jackfruit. Inspector Mahima Basroor (Sania Malhotra) is assigned the case. Mahima’s boyfriend Saurabh (Aanant Joshi) is a constable. Whose father is against his marriage to Mahima as she is of lower caste and also above him in rank. During the investigation of Jackfruit’s recovery, the case of the kidnapping of MLA’s servant’s daughter Amiya comes to light, so Mahima diverts the investigation and goes to solve the kidnapping case. Meanwhile, the case of the kidnapping of more than a hundred girls comes to light. Detective Shrivastu (Brajendra Kala) and a news reporter Anuj Sanghvi (Rajpal Yadav) who runs a YouTube channel are also involved in investigating the case of jackfruit theft. A police investigation of Amiya reveals that she was abducted by a gang and sold to a confectioner, Gulab Seth (Raghubir Yadav), who is rescued by Mahima, but the mystery of the theft continues. Not solved either. In the last scene, it is shown that the monkeys had taken jackfruit from the tree and taken it to the roof of the mansion and eaten it. What did Gulab Seth do with the kidnapped girls? Who kidnapped the other hundred girls? Neither the writer nor the director felt the need to answer these questions. Even the entire operation of the police raiding Gulab Seth’s house to recover Amiya was turned into a comedy sequence.
This kind of useless story can only be contained in the empty minds of Indian writers. The story is useless, there is nothing in the screenplay and dialogues of the film that can compensate the audience for two hours of waste.

Even after gathering all the famous comedians of the Bollywood industry, no work was taken from them. Except for Sania Malhotra, all the actors feel like recruits. Sania herself also had nothing to do except walk around in a police uniform and try to handle the role with trashy dialogues, which she failed.

In recent years, the box office success of Bollywood films and the attempts of Mumbaiyya filmmakers to take ideas from South Indian films and make films have proved that Bollywood is running out of new stories to tell. Bollywood has gone haywire when it comes to storytelling. This is the reason why he borrows ideas from a South Korean film while making “Blind” and is forced to borrow a story from South India while making “Jawan“. Some filmmakers are forced to remake twenty-year-old Gadar. Knowing that the world has changed now. Even Pakistani filmmakers are not trying the formula of removing the hand pump, but maybe Bollywood no longer can think and brainstorm.

In recent years, the box office success of Bollywood films and the attempts of Mumbaiyya filmmakers to take ideas from South Indian films and make films have proved that Bollywood is running out of new stories to tell. Bollywood has gone haywire when it comes to storytelling. This is the reason why he borrows ideas from a South Korean film while making “Blind” and is forced to borrow a story from South India while making “Jawan“. Some filmmakers are forced to remake twenty-year-old Gadar. Knowing that the world has changed now. Even Pakistani filmmakers are not trying the formula of removing the hand pump, but maybe Bollywood no longer can think and brainstorm.

Back to Kathal: A Jackfruit Mystery.
This is the debut project of the film director Yashowardhan Mishra. Earlier he has done a few short films. In his first film, he could not impress. He failed miserably in his attempt to make a light comedy film.
In this story, where there are many flaws, the weaknesses of the Indian society and the social evils along with the system are also highlighted. For example, an MLA from a backward area has so much power that he can control the entire police force with his fingers.

The second point is the caste system. Even in the 21st century, Indian society has not been able to protect itself from casteism, as is evident from the characters of Mahima and Saurabh in the film.
The third bitter truth is evident in Amiya’s character, that a girl is labeled as a vagrant and active simply because she wears ripped jeans and a high-necked shirt. This question is also asked to her in the courtroom Why she does do bold dressing? In this way, she tries to attract people toward her. These questions are raised in a society and a country that considers itself very liberal and modern.

This movie is produced by Balaji Telefilms. That is, the big names of the TV industry, Shobha Kapoor and Ekta Kapoor, are the brains behind this trashy movie. Surprisingly, this movie has a rating of 6.7 on IMDB. I think giving this movie only one and a half stars is enough. While Netflix wants to protect its reputation, it has to distance itself from such time-wasting productions.