Batti Gul Meter Chalu is supposedly a social drama about the common man’s plight in matters of erratic electricity supply and faulty meters.
The story in case revolves around three friends Nauti ( Shraddha) , SK( Shahid) and Tripathi ( Divyendu ). They are inseparable childhood buddies who later develop a rift because of a love triangle.
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A major chunk of first half of this utterly lengthy film (of 3 hrs!! ) keeps a meandering and testing pace just portraying the interpersonal relationships between the trio. The story thankfully takes a turn when the rift crops up.
Post interval , the story changes pace when tragedy strikes. The easy going Shahid, who is a lawyer by profession but thrives on making money out of blackmailing people about their fraudulent advertisements , now turns serious and decides to take on the electricity supply company. The last leg of the story is set up as a court room drama( lengthy again).
Now that I have given you the formal brief of the story, let me get on about the review.
The script writers (Vipul Rawal, Siddhartha Singh and Garima Wahal) deserve some kind of recognition for turning a potentially good story (with intent in the right place ) into most insipid and stretched out script ever written. Ironically, I read that there was some kind of a dispute between Rawal and the rest two with regards to credits for the writing. He should rather have disowned it .
The dialogues are nothing short of testing your patience. They seem absolutely juvenile and frivolous most of the time. And to make matters worse , the garwali lingo has been used to the extent of abuse just to add authenticity. It did rather the opposite.
The court room drama which generally peps up the dreariest of the scenarios was turned into a mockery by hamming and over the top antics .
Imagine a scene when one lawyer in the middle of proceedings, takes a porn book out of the bag of the defense lawyer, starts reading it aloud, climbs on top of a chair while she tries to snatch it out of his hands .
While the intention and the message of the film was well placed, it was completely lost in the sloppy execution and lacklustre script which is borderline inane. Its a pity that the director Shree Narayan Singh( Toilet ek Premkatha ) decided to turn editor for his own work and was unable to see where it should have been ruthlessly clipped .
I firmly believe that directors should never play editors for they are so much in love with their work that they fail to see what an editor is supposed to. The director had quite an able cast . Shahid tries his level best to infuse energy into his character but could only deliver as much as the script permitted . God knows when will lady luck start shining on this chap.
Divyendu gave a very credible and restrained performance. Shraddha was as good as she normally is. Music by Anu Malik was good . “ Hard Hard “ by Mika was foot tapping. “ Dekhte Dekhte “ by Rahat and “ Har Har Gange “ by Arijit were very melodious. Cinematography by Anshuman Mahaley portrayed a very pretty picture of the beautiful Tehri region.
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Overall the movie was a big disappointment. Given the director and his last movie, the fact that the central message was very relevant and the cast was more than able , it could have turned into an entertaining and relevant film.
But alas, more than the intent , its the execution that matters and gives us a good product. Could be a one time watch for those who have plenty of patience.
Score 5 on 10