Titli Movie Review: Worth A Watch But Not For The Faint-Hearted

Yash Raj Films, known for coming up with romantic tales and intense love stories, has explored the crime-drama genre in the past (Mardaani, Aurangzeb), but with Titli, the production house tries something that it has never done before-with admirable results.

Set in ever-expanding Delhi, Titli revolves around a young boy with a quirky nickname Titli (Shashank Arora), who comes from a family of violent carjackers comprising his elder brothers Vikram (Ranvir Shorey) and Bawla (Amit Sial). When Titli makes an attempt to escape the violent family, he is promptly married off to Neelu (Shivani Raghuvanshi) in the hopes that he will 'settle down' and also because they need a female accomplice to help them with their criminal activities.

However, the wedding meant to chain Titli, ironically provides him with an opportunity to escape from the cesspool of crime and realize his dreams of having a garage in a sprawling mall. How Titli manages to do this forms the rest of the plot.

Newbies Shashank Arora and Shivani have done a masterful job and it is a sheer delight to watch them as they turn into reluctant allies to escape their destinies. Both the actors are quite natural and are blessed with an easy comfort while facing the camera. Amit Sial puts in a decent performance as Balwa, the second brother who seems like a gentle angel compared to his elder brother. However, it is Ranvir Shorey as the violent Vikram, who simply astounds you with his talent.

Shorey's Vikram is someone who can unblinkingly smash in someone's skull with a hammer and yet get teary-eyed when his wife serves him with divorce papers. Shorey, who has mostly played comic roles, ends up owning the film with his aura of unrestrained violence with a dash of vulnerability and we hope to see this talented performer explore more such roles. Lalit Behl as the helpless patriarch, who never finds the courage to stand up to his sons, is bang on.

Kanu Behl makes his directorial debut with this film and the man is simply too good at his craft. Behl's Delhi is dusty, violent and ambitious and so are its inhabitants. Titli himself might struggle to escape his family, but he is no shrinking violet when it comes to violence either-the lanky teenager has no qualms with breaking his young wife's hand with a hammer to prevent her from signing away her fixed deposit money to her brother-in-laws. The fact that he pumps her with anesthesia before the act is but a small mercy not enough to show him in a positive light.

Be warned that Titli is not an easy film to watch. The movie will make you cringe and wince with its unadulterated violence and with the way its characters deal so casually with it. "Kuch nahi hua, beta", says a blood-soaked Vikram to his hysterical sister-in-law Neelu seconds after smashing a man's head and face with his hammer right before her horrified eyes. In another scene, the father is seen calmly dunking his biscuit in a cup of tea even as Vikram loses his cool and starts beating up Titli for daring to dream of a future without the family.

However, there are times when the director seems to indulge his habit of overkill. The scenes showing in detail how the characters brush their teeth noisily, seems like an effort to just reinforce the fact that the film is quite real and raw. Also, what makes Titli change his mind at the last minute is something that has not been explained effectively.

All said and done, Behl's dark, brutal and quite unapologetic 'Titli' is certainly worth a watch, provided you are not a faint-hearted cinephile.