The year 2010 gave us some superb small films which in turn were responsible to raise my expectations from UTT PATAANG. Moreover its talented star cast lead by Vinay Pathak (in double role), Saurabh Shukla, Mona Singh, Mahie Gill and Sanjay Mishra was enough to excite offbeat movie lovers like myself to a large extent. In all a first time attempt by director Srikanth V. Velagaleti showed some great promise even without any noticeable promotions before its release.
But unfortunately this time we don't get a polished gem in the disguise of a small film as seen in the previous year. Despite of having a talented cast ensemble and interesting script UTT PATAANG only manages to impress its viewers in parts and fails to emerge as a winner all together. Rightly made as a song less film with a short duration, the film does hold your attention in some particular sequences but overall it cannot be called as a thoroughly entertaining thriller cum comedy. Revolving around a one night storyline written around a bag full of money, the film talks about only few people and their mutual interactions, showcasing the elements of lust, love, greed and crime in their contrasting characters. Incidentally we have seen many movies in the past written around a bag full of money like Ek Chalis Ki Local, Sankat City, Emotional Atyachaar and more. Ignoring this fact the major problem in UTT PATAANG comes in the first 15 minutes itself where the proceedings are pretty slow and uninteresting which really put you off.
In other words, its takes too much time to sink in which does bring in some kind of restlessness in the viewers. But once all the characters and their individual link ups are clear, the film starts entertaining but that too in only bits and parts.
To be precise, all the confusions created in the first half get cleared post intermission. But the second half has another big problem of over- acting by the veteran actor Vinay Pathak in his double role of a Gangster loving French style and language. As I see it, his all one liner gags, histrionics and dialogues with French accent fall flat completely and do not entertain. In fact, I strongly feel that if conceived in a different and better manner, this double role of Vinay could have easily been the major highlight of the film post interval. In this second part though the story moves pretty fast but still the life saving entertaining moments only come towards the climax where another corrupt police officer enters to taste the part of the cake. Truly speaking the final moments once again save the movie and you don't get up from your seat completely disheartened.
So overall it's a very bumpy ride with steep lows and not so big highs. No doubt the script is written thoughtfully by Saurabh Shukla and Srikanth, focusing on many interlinked sequences which get repeated from different perspective of a new character each time. But in my opinion this particular style of story-telling is now becoming over-used, especially in such small budget experimental movies. Last time I remember seeing the same kind of scripting in "Emotional Atyachaar" which was also released in the previous year. Anyway, in the cinematography department the film gets the right feel as required accompanied by a complimenting background score by Sanjoy Chowdhary.
Performance wise, Vinay Pathak does both good as well as bad in this movie. As a simple common man he is great as usual but as a French obsessed Gangster he does it a little over and fails to entertain. Saurabh Shukla as his detective friend is superb but again he is getting typed in these kind of roles seen in several films. Mona Singh in his limited scope does well. But Mahie Gill sizzles on the screen in all her revealing dresses like a hot sexy-siren in the role of a con-woman. Though she hasn't got much to do other than giving uncaring looks and stares, but still she looks stunning and surprises a lot after her last small cameo in DABANGG. And the girl really deserves much better roles to prove her inner talent. In the rest of the cast Sanjay Mishra gets wasted whereas Delnaaz Paul, Murli Sharma and Brijendra Kala are strictly routine
All together, UTT PATAANG can only partly impress the viewers who like to watch offbeat thriller films made in this particular style. But for the rest, it might be synonym to its title i.e. UTT PATAANG.
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