One Cut Two Cut movie review: Danish Sait's charm upholds this rib-tickling comedy

Language: Kannada  I’m sure you’d agree with me that the Covid-19 lockdown would have been harder to cope with, without Ramamurthy Avre and Gopi and Chetta for company. And, Danish Sait, who came up with these unique personalities who got away with saying anything, is back on Amazon Prime with One Cut Two Cut, featuring as Gopi, hardly a few weeks after his _Humble Politiciann Nograj_  premiered on VootSelect to much love. Unlike Nograj, who is scheming and quite the grey character, Gopi is an (sic) all things innocent and sweet. He loves crafts and making an paper birds and flowers and even an paper guns and an masks. A cut here, a cut there, and he even breaks into an songs. What happens when Gopi walks into a rundown school in the suburbs, where all the children across classes are crammed into a room, introducing himself as an professor of arts and crafts? And what happens when he’s busy speaking with an overdose of ‘an’s’ and four people, including one with a gun, in masks with art like that of (an) Shri Salvador Dali walk in? Pruthviraj (Prakash Belawadi), the group leader, is an out-of-popularity newsreader, Gurudev (Manosh Sputnique Sengupta), a retired defence person is from Shivamogga, Ayan (Vineeth Beep Kumar) is a struggling stand-up comic and Neha (Roopa Muthurayappa), the vegan who throws out the only palatable thing about a lunch. They meet on Twitter and decide to protest against random things, but the four-member protest ends in a darshini hotel where they debate the merits of idli with chutney or sambar!

One Cut Two Cut rides on the charm of Danish. The actor-writer has an endearing screen presence and has the ability to pull off this distinctly over-the-top character without making him seem like a(n) caricature.

The writing, by Danish and director Vamsidhar Bhogaraju, is lit in places, and these bring in the biggest laughs. Nothing is spared — a popular Instagram-er doing the hula hoop in a sari and sneakers, roads being dug up as part of the smart city scheme, veganism, the no-egg in noon meal protest, and a delicious one on intermittent fasting — and the gags keep coming at you. And then there’s Prakash Belawadi, who’s having the time of his life on OTT — it’s great an actor of his calibre now has a national audience. As Pruthviraj, the once-young man who beat Amitabh Bachchan in that AIR voice test, remained a voice on radio, and who has become an old man nursing an intense dislike for Amitabh Bachchan, he is lit. There’s a delightful laugh-aloud moment referencing Amitabh too, wait for it. And, of course, his Gabbar-like ‘Aap goli khao’ line. Sakkath maja, only.

The film has too many strands for its near 90-minute run time, and that is its biggest drawback — there’s a flashback featuring Danish and Nagaveni (Samyukta Hornad, who also gets referenced in a hula hoop scene — in real life, she faced moral policing when doing the hoop in a park), a terrorist angle, a below-the-radar crack team angle, the chief minister’s secretary angle, and the TV reporter out in search of a story. It is impossible to do justice to all in that runtime. But, the film has its heart in the right place — the things Gopi demands of the government after taking a bullet in the rear to save one of the ‘terrorists’, are good food for students, clean toilets, fans in the classroom and for teachers to be paid well and on time. The film does something very endearing in that it references localities like Byatarayanapura (that too two, not one) and people living away from urban Bengaluru, so often seen in Kannada cinema. The scene where the crack team and we discover there are two Byatarayanapuras is beautifully shot and edited (Sahit Anand PC, cinematographer, editor and co-screenplay writer) And, it takes a happy dig at all those who insist ‘Kannad gothilla’ (don’t know Kannada) and go all Bhaaya. There are some lines written around food delivery apps, and the line by the crack team chief, ‘Let’s roll’ will never mean the same again. Music by Nakul Abhyankar meets the film’s requirements, and the Kannada bhangra is quite the earworm. Wait for the light-heartes end credits to roll fully, though, to smile some more. This film is the first from the late Puneeth Rajkumar ’s PRK Productions after his demise . The co-producer title is shared by his wife Ashwini Puneeth Rajkumar and Guruduth A Talwar. Had he been around, Puneeth would have been incredibly proud of his Danish. Because greenlighting a just-about 90-minute project speaks of his confidence in the team. It is this thought process of Puneeth that the Kannada industry will continue to miss for a long time to come. Rating: 3.5/5 Subha J Rao is a consultant writer and editor based out of Mangaluru, Karnataka. There, she keeps alive her love for cinema across languages. You can find her on Twitter @subhajrao.