Remember “Delhi Belly?” The 2011 Hindi action-comedy that paved the way for more quirky, low-budget but well-written and executed films in the Indian film industry? Released this weekend on Netflix, “Looop Lapeta”—also said to be a remake of the 1998 German thriller “Run Lola Run”—knowingly or unknowingly styles itself after Delhi Belly. Looop Lapeta tries to emulate Delhi Belly’s idiosyncrasies in writing, direction, acting, background music, and cinematography and improvises on Run Lola Run’s story.
Savina Borkar aka Savi (Taapsee Pannu)—a track runner whose career has just ended after an on-field accident—is in a live-in relationship with Satyajeet aka Satya (Tahir Raj Bhasin), a gambling addict who wants to get rich quickly. As greedy and conniving as he is, Satya still manages to get in a mess with local goon Victor (Dibyendu Bhattacharya). Now Savi has to find Rs five million in 50 minutes to save Satya.
In the other bit of the story, brothers Appu and Gappu (Manik Papneja and Raghav Raj Kakker) are plotting to rob their father’s jewelry store while a desperate cab driver Robert (Alistar Bennis) is planning to elope with his girlfriend Julia (Shreya Dhanwanthary) who is getting married at a local church.
Although the stories in the film concern different sets of people, their fates are intertwined. With Satya-Savi’s story as the main peg, all the characters are interlinked in a time loop that Savi controls. Based on her choices and actions, everyone’s life takes a different course while she struggles to get a happy ending for herself and Satya.
With all these stories to tell in an unconventional mode and with the artistic freedom given by OTT platforms, Looop Lapeta seems like a fast-paced action comedy with plenty of mind-boggling twists. But only the trailer and the first quarter of the film give you that experience. As the film progresses, things start getting repetitive (literally!) and boring.
The problem with Looop Lapeta is, it just tries too hard. The time loops are rather long, maybe trying to justify the extra ‘o’ in the film’s misnomer of a title and even with its length exceeding two hours, storytelling seems lacking in places. Besides Savi, none of the characters get a proper back story and hers is not justified either. Director Aakash Bhatia seems to be lost somewhere between commercial and arthouse cinema in this film penned by four writers in total.
The group of writers tries to be clever, inserting cryptic messages and allusions to other films, including a very-very famous Hollywood blockbuster from the early 90s. Some parts and conversations in the movie also allude to the story of Savitri who prevented her husband Satyavan’s death in Mahabharata. But all this wittiness is useless with the film’s imperfect storytelling and weak character development.
Also, the two lead characters—Tahir Raj Bhasin and Taapsee Pannu—disappoint with their performances. Somehow, Taapsee doesn’t fit into the role of a recently retired athlete and throughout the film, her performance is akin to that of a high schooler who has not understood her assignment. Similarly, Tahir seems to have over-read his assignment is trying to over-perform for his teachers. The critical acclaim the actor earned from his recent series “Yeh Kaali Kaali Ankhein” is getting undone with his uncomfortable goofiness in Looop Lapeta.
Delhi Belly, or any other film that tries to break the conventional shackles of Bollywood, mostly have one thing in common—their background scores get them an audience of their own. Unfortunately, Looop Lapeta fails here too. Although it tries various contemporary genres and a lot of modern jazz, there’s no “Bhaag D.K. Bose” in the film. Not even something remotely close to it.
Who should watch it?
It’s Valentine’s season and you may be thinking of watching movies based on love and all. Let me tell you, Looop Lapeta is not a love story. We don’t even know whether Savi is really in love with Satya or she’s put herself in the situation because she has nothing else to do. So, the movie is more for an audience looking for an action-comedy than a love story. But lovers can still enjoy it, separately, with the forward button handy.
On Netflix
Rating: 2 stars
Genre: Action comedy
Actors: Tahir Raj Bhasin, Taapsee Pannu
Director: Aakash Bhatia
Run time: 2hrs 11 mins
