Kathal focuses on a bizzare case of a missing pair of jackfruits that sends the police in a frenzy . However , the lead Mahima (Sania Malhotra) soon finds something more serious to investigate and comes up with a plan to solve the more serious one while masking it under the jackfruit case.
Kathal is a satire on the Indian police system which tends to go about unnecessary cases under political pressure while ignoring the more serious ones. It is also a social commentary on caste system and many evils present in the society and what makes it different from the other socio commentaries is the jackfruit case .
Nothing is force fed as a speech rather everything is mixed well within the screenplay through normal conversations like a constable mentioning how useless he feels but soon gets to hear that a constable is nothing but a pawn in the chess that can bring down even the king . Being set village areas , it showcases the mentality of village people judging girls based on their fashion like a person saying "She was wearing torn jeans so probably she ran away with some Romeo".
The humor is the USP of this film. It is present in just the right amount and works extremely well . The dialogue, which was present in the teaser as well, "Hum police walo ka standard bhi konsa asmaan choo Raha hai? Hum kathal dhund rahe hai" summarises how nice, subtle and relatable humor the film has. The climax reminded me of the old Bollywood comedies but definitely not as good as them.
Sanya Malhotra does a fine job in this film and so does Vijay Raaz. Rajpal Yadav has some nice hilarious dialogues but his performance and character felt hammy. I forgot his name but the constable who was desperate to search for his stolen car too was pretty hilarious and at the same time you feel for his character who only was desperate because it was a dowry for his daughters marriage. Yet another sad aspect shown in the film. His car gets a twist at the end which you might laugh or feel bad about , but i felt bad mostly but laughed a bit as well. The romance between Sania and her love was pretty cute one.
Don't miss the last scene. It reveals who stole the kathal. It literally left me in splits.
The film does get slow in between and that's the only negative i found in the otherwise near perfect film
Overall, Kathal hits the mark mostly and should be on your watchlist for this weekend . It's fun, hilarious take on some serious topics without becoming too loud or too funny that the seriousness of the topics get lost.
