When I saw the trailer of this one, I was in ecstasy. And then, immediately depressed. Historically, movies that have had a great trailer have scarcely lived up to the expectation. Then, with all the hype and controversy – I became further apprehensive. Happy to report though, that all those concerns are unfounded – Udta Punjab is quite the watch and possibly the best that 2016 has offered thus far.
I have a feeling that when the honorable Censor Board (said with a heavy dose of sarcasm) decided to weed out some scenes and ordered the 80 odd cuts in the movie, they might have stopped watching after the first half hour. I say this because, during that time, you might yourself believe that this movie hardly sets the right example – it glorifies drugs, bad language and all that’s wrong with Punjab, without apologies. If only they’d been patient enough to watch through to the end – they might have felt differently about this extremely well made movie. Especially when the director has the good sense to show the real face of Punjab – silently weeping out of despair and sheer helplessness, beside all the razzmatazz. If they still couldn’t figure out what the director really wanted to portray – perhaps this isn’t the job for them.
Udta Punjab has a solid build up. The first half hardly does anything in terms of plot development – but it does one thing really well – it sets the stage and builds connect with the 4 lives that you are supposed to care for. That comes in more than handy, with the uneven pacing of the second half and you are willing to allow the drag because you now care about their fate. It also gives a subtle yet powerful commentary on the actual drug problem and is willing to show it in all its ugliness.
A great amount of credit though, goes to the near perfect direction from Abhishek Chaubey, at least in the first half. The director uses some smart tactics – tightly binding one thread to the next, using props from various frames to connect across the 4 lives. Not once do you feel the pace ebbing or there being too many threads. In the second half, while he continues to maintain that trend, too much time gets spent on the individual threads, that makes the pacing uneven and there are times when you wonder even if the director has a fix on things.
If the script is good, the starcast is in even better form. Everybody, with the exception of Kareena Kapoor Khan, is an absolute perfect fit to their given roles and do more than justice to the characters allotted to them. Surprisingly, Diljit Dosanjh not only manages to hold his own but has great screen presence each time the camera focuses on him, which happens liberally in the first half. Alia Bhatt is a serious talent, who is challenging herself with every film and emerging a shining star with each attempt. She takes on a tough character, complete with a native Bihari accent and pulls it off with aplomb. Shahid Kapoor is in scintillating form – while he may appear over the top initially, its what the script demanded and he pulls it off completely. Even Satish Kaushik in his limited role, manages to get noticed. Kareena is a much better actress than what she does in Udta Punjab – she can’t do the Punjabi accent and looking pretty continues to be high on her priority list – irrespective of the context in the movie.
There are two things that keep this film from scaling even greater heights than it already does – not one song is memorable or worth humming and the background score isn’t all that impressive either. Two, the uneven pacing – it slows down when it should gather speed and quickens the pace, when you least expect it to. The unnecessary love angles don’t help and further slacken the pace.
This is perhaps what keeps it a few notches lower than say, a Kamineyy. Still, this is a very different movie – subtle in some ways, glaringly obvious in others – and it all works, for the most part. Abhishek Chaubey is one to watch out for, the starcast more than delivers, especially Alia and Shahid and Udta Punjab is worth all the hype and more.
