Gopi — a lovelorn, timid man with an outdated fashion sense and a toothbrush mustache — is the latest addition to comedian-filmmaker-actor Danish Sait’s canon of comical heroes. Unlike Nograj from Humble Politician Nograj or Asgar from French Biriyani, Gopi in One Cut Two Cut is not a caricature of ordinary people from different walks of life with enjoyable idiosyncrasies.
Gopi cannot be passed off as another stereotype. In this day and age, it is hard to find a young man who sports a hairdo and a mustache that belonged to the early 20th century. One can only hope that Danish and director Vamsidhar Bhogaraju adopted Gopi’s appearance as a metaphor for a bigger theme or issue they plan to tackle in the movie.
Only, the appearance or the forced timidity has no larger purpose or meaning. It is all a dim-witted attempt at tomfoolery and the blind faith of Danish and Vamsidhar in people’s large-heartedness to forgive them for their misadventures.
Danish wants us to just laugh at Gopi’s look. While writing his character, he has been utterly unempathetic and indifferent to Gopi. Neither Danish nor Vamsidhar thought it was imperative to tell the story of where Gopi is coming from, instead of simply treating him as an object of ridicule. Why did Gopi choose to major in arts and crafts? Why does he dress like that? What happened to his mother? What’s his worldview? And how does he feel about being subjected to all the ridicule? Adding some empathy and compassion in the narration wouldn’t be so bad after all.
The blatant mistreatment of the protagonist seeps into other parts of the movie. The camera movement, sound, music and editing does very little to improve the narration. The whole movie seems purposeless as its humor feels recycled and churlish, drama is non-existing, conflict is not strong enough, and social commentary is not fresh enough.
It is high time, the comedy writers come up with fresh jokes about Bengaluru and stop milking the city’s traffic problems. It doesn’t feel funny anymore.
One Cut Two Cut is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
,