Kartavya

Pulkit ventures into familiar territory — casteism in the hinterland, corruption in the system and a lone wolf battling it all — in his latest film Kartavya. The filmmaker, who prefers to remain mononymous, has touched upon all the above themes in his much-acclaimed 2024 film Bhakshak, one which had Bhumi Pednekar fighting against all odds as an intrepid journalist in small-town India who takes on the powers-that-be to uncover a girl trafficking racket. Bhakshak, which was clearly based on the Muzaffarpur shelter case, was backed by Shah Rukh Khan’s Red Chillies Entertainment, as is Kartavya. Both are on Netflix.

Writer-director Pulkit has quietly become one of the most prolific filmmakers strutting around Hindi cinema these days. Red Chillies Entertainment’s blue-eyed boy has had four releases in the last two years, with two more currently in production. His finest work to date is his previous team-up with Netflix—2024’s Bhumi Pednekar-starrer Bhakshak. His latest, Kartavya, is a cousin of that film. Kartavya is not quite as concentrated, focused, and hardhitting as Bhakshak, but wrestles with similar themes of lone heroes taking a stand against injustice, systemic corruption, and the power structures that allow those at the top to prey on children.

While watching Kartavya, one can spot a pattern in the films Shah Rukh Khan’s Red Chillies Entertainment (RCE) wants to champion. After Atul Sabharwal’s Class of 83 (2020), Shanker Raman’s Love Hostel (2021), Pulkit’s own debut, Bhakshak (2024) comes the upstart director’s latest release – a cop procedural set in a faux-Haryana town called Jhamli, centered around a notorious Godman, a murder and the village elders set on avenging their humiliation with corpses. Given how the space for the political film has been severely curtailed in the last few years, RCE’s films seem built around the socially vulnerable: orphaned girls, runaway lovers, kids imprisoned in service of Godmen. In a time when the studio could be making anything, props to RCE for picking these grim subjects and lending adequate gravitas to them.

“Dharm karte hain karm chhoot-ta hai, karm karte hain toh dharm; kartavya tak toh baat hi nahi pahunchti hai…” Pithy dialogue indeed, summarising the dilemma of modern-day mankind. Yet Saif Ali Khan-led ‘Kartavya’ is all about our hero’s duty towards his job and society at large. In the OTT space, Saif, who made a killer impression with ‘Sacred Games’, once again plays a conscientious cop, Pawan Malik. The very first few scenes, banter with his colleague Sanjay Mishra’s Ashok, establish him as abrasive. The scene where Pawan cuts a cake with other policemen also reminds us he has just turned 40. At home, he has an authoritarian father (Zakir Hussain), a loving wife (Rasika Dugal), a son and a younger brother, Deepak. Birthday celebrations at home can wait as he is expected to give cover to a journalist in town. That she would be murdered is obvious from the moment she lands in Jhamli, somewhere in Haryana.

By the time four thugs corner SHO Pawan Malik (Saif Ali Khan) in his home, Kartavya has been simmering for an hour and 15 minutes. Threats are made; Saif folds his arms and tells them to do their worst. I was ready for him to knock them out cold, but then something interesting happens. There’s a fight. It’s not even close. Saif barely gets two punches in and he’s overpowered. It took me a while to realise this wasn’t some clever ploy on the cop’s part. When’s the last time an Indian film hero lost a fight? It doesn’t take the small-town cop film anywhere new. There’s nothing in its view of khap panchayats or corrupt local police forces that hasn’t been explored before. Still, it’s hard to argue that Pulkit’s film doesn’t capture something of the spirit of these dejected times. Everyone in the film is resigned to their place in a rigged system, so much so that Pawan’s attempts to ensure justice are seen by well-wishers not only as foolhardiness but irresponsibility towards his family and his own prospects.

The protagonist of Bhakshak (“Predator”), the Netflix film directed by Pulkit and produced by Shah Rukh Khan’s Red Chillies Entertainment, was a scrappy female journalist (Bhumi Pednekar) who uncovers a small-town sex abuse racket in a shelter home involving some very powerful figures. Kartavya (“Duty”), the Netflix film from the same makers, shares a universe of sorts. It opens with the murder of a senior female journalist who arrives to uncover a small-town child abuse racket in a spiritual cult involving some very powerful figures. The protagonist is the cop who fails to protect her from those bullets; her film ended before it could begin. SHO Pawan (Saif Ali Khan) is then forced to grow a conscience and do the work of a brave reporter who is reduced to a gun-wielding uniform. Both films unfold largely under the cover of night, and have central characters who realise that doing their duty is no longer about doing their job — it’s about doing the right thing. Both also feature Sanjay Mishra in top form as the loyal subordinate.

एक पुलिस वाला दूसरे पुलिस वाले से कह रहा है-‘धरम करते हैं करम छूटता है, करम करते हैं धरम छूटता है। कर्तव्य तक तो बात ही नहीं पहुंचती।’ गौर करें तो यह संवाद ही अपने-आप में गलत है। कर्तव्य का अर्थ ही होता है ‘धर्मानुकूल कर्म’ यानी अपने धर्म को निभाते हुए किया गया कर्म। लेकिन हमारे फिल्मी लेखकों को तो भारी-भरकम संवाद लिखने हैं, भले ही उनका कुछ अर्थ निकले या न निकले। रही-सही कसर तब पूरी हो जाती है जब ये भारी संवाद एक हल्की कहानी और कमजोर स्क्रिप्ट में जबरन घुसाए जाते है। साफ लगता है कि दो चवन्नियां चिपका कर अठन्नी बनाने की कोशिश हो रही है। इन्हीं चिपकी हुई चवन्नियों को ट्रेलर में देख कर दर्शक फिल्म (Kartavya) देखने बैठता है और जब खुद को ठगा हुआ महसूस करता है तो सोचता है काश, रिव्यू पहले पढ़ लिया होता।

These days, OTT films flirt with hinterland politics but settle for safe social commentary. They are conceived with the data-driven rigour of a journalistic research project, but executed with the unfinished, compromised soul of a half-written novel. The trending themes are child abuse and caste honour, but the actual grit remains strictly dialogue-heavy and dialect-deep. The volatile social issues get diluted by a cautious approach. The narrative feels distinctly over-vetted, leaving one with the inescapable impression that a legal team sat directly beside the editor, scrubbing away uncomfortable truths.