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?
Kartavya 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 film opens on Pawan’s 40th birthday. His loyal, bumbling subordinate Ashok (Sanjay Mishra) buys him a gift on behalf of the team—white sneakers. When Pawan gets home, his wife, Varsha (Rasika Dugal), and young boy also present him white shoes, and he mock-complains because he has several more pairs. There are worse ways to indicate someone’s a straight arrow, but the film also suggests there’s a reason Pawan hasn’t risen to the top of the chain even in a small town like Jhamli. At the start, he’s assigned to protect a visiting journalist from Delhi. Escorting her home, he watches with no bells ringing as two men on a bike overtake their jeep and the journalist’s car and open fire. Only after his protectee is long dead does he jump into action, though he can’t stop the killers from getting away.
So Pawan is a less effective cop than he probably thinks he is, though it isn’t from lacking of trying. He harangues his boss, Keshav (Manish Chaudhari), into giving him a week to solve the murder. He suspects cult leader Anand Shri (journalist Saurabh Dwivedi)—about whom there are whispers of child trafficking and abuse —is behind it all, but the shooting has been pinned on a boy, Harpal (Yudhvir Ahlawat), who’s on the lam. It’s a bit of stunt casting to have Dwivedi as a smarmy journalist-murdering villain. He’s only in a few scenes, which is the right call—yet it’s strange that the film’s main antagonist is such a sketchy presence. Harpal, on the other hand, is beautifully realised, and played heartbreakingly by Ahlawat. See the way his eyes keep flitting this way and that in his first scene, an animal about to bolt.
Pawan’s home situation is no less volatile. His younger brother, Deepak, has eloped with a girl of a different caste. Pawan is sympathetic, but their father, Harihar (Zakir Hussain), can’t see past his hidebound ideas of caste pride. Some of the more chilling scenes in the film are the panchayat discussing matter-of-factly whether or not the absconding couple should be killed. The problem is Harihar is such an unbending fascist that the film can’t really use this father-son relationship to explore competing notions of kartavya (duty), to one’s job, family, society or personal sense of morality. There’s no reasoning with the old man. Pawan brings up Amrish Puri in the context of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, but Harihar is closer to the Amrish Puri of Ardh Satya, another abusive father of a cop.
Anyone looking for a swaggering crime film like the recent Subedaar will find nothing of the sort in Kartavya. After a misfire of an action film with Rajkummar Rao last year, Pulkit returns to the quiet, ominous register of 2024's Bhakshak. A functional filmmaker, he’s a good writer of weary, sardonic dialogue. He draws a fine performance from Khan, who’s as restrained and emotionally present as we’ve seen in a long time (also, a great muttered “Good point bhenchod”). He starts out chirpy, Saif-like, and gets progressively sadder. It’s a performance in search of a film with a bit more going on.
Kartavya ends hurriedly, several story strands still hanging. It’s extremely bleak, not just the fates of most characters but the decisions Pawan is forced to take in the final passage. Coming on the heels of Kohrra's second season, Subedaar and Glory, this is another authentic downer. It’s not reflecting in the bigger-budget Bollywood films yet, but Hindi streaming is a landscape of growing unrest and unhappiness.
'Kartavya’ is on Netflix.
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