One Cut Two Cut review: Satire lite that hits the mark

The paths of Gopi, a simple arts and crafts teacher, and four outspoken ‘keyboard’ warriors who want their demands met collide in a bizarre yet funny hostage scenario at a government school in Bangalore. Actor Danish Sait, along with writer-director Vamsidhar Bhogaraju, has penned a hilarious plot in which Gopi must save his students, impress fellow teacher Nagaveni (Samyukta Hornad) and manage the unruly ‘terrorists’, all on his first day!

Sait’s Gopi is a humble but eager teacher of arts and crafts, a field that does him no favours on the marriage mart. He meets Nagaveni, whose father had turned him down as a groom for her, at the Byatarayanapura school. Gopi has two ambitions — to get a job as a teacher and 'settle down' and marry. One half of his goals seems to have been achieved when an unlikely group of social media activists-turned-terrorists turns his life upside down.

The fierce foursome are former army man Gurudev (Manosh ‘Sputnique’ Sengupta), vegan environmentalist Neha (Roopa Muthurayappa), struggling stand-up comedian Ayan (Vineeth ‘Beep’ Kumar) and their initial ringleader Pruthviraj (Prakash Belawadi). Dressed as masked characters from the Spanish web-series Money Heist aka La Casa de Papel, they take the classroom (and Gopi) hostage.

But their disparate demands, and lack of planning and motivation, nearly do them in. Belawadi’s Pruthviraj is hoping this stunt will propel him to the front pages. As a young man, he beat out none other than Amitabh Bachchan for a job at All India Radio. While the actor went on to fame and fortune, Pruthviraj remained a radio announcer, nursing a grudge for years.

He fancies himself as the true beholder of Bachchan’s success and wants to change his destiny. But with the chief minister’s secretary (Sampath Maitreya) playing spoilsport, and suppressing the news from a curious TV reporter Komala (Soundarya Nagaraj), poor Pruthviraj may never get his 15 minutes of fame.

One Cut Two Cut’s hostage situation highlights the poor conditions that both teachers and students face in government schools, like low salaries, poor facilities and barely adequate mid-day meals. The screenplay also nicely highlights how politics and elections use citizens as pawns — leading the cast to break the fourth wall in a clever moment.

While Gopi is the go-between for the social media activists and the CM’s secretary, he quickly realizes he might have to step up to save the day. Sait’s character, which first made its debut on social media, is well-known, but the actor-writer gives equal prominence to others in the film.

The frustrations of Gurudev, Neha and Ayan are enough for them to protest, but when it comes to walking the walk, they fizzle out quickly. Only Pruthviraj is determined to go the distance, and Belawadi commits himself admirably, to go from hero to villain.

But the real scene-stealer for me was director Bhogaraju’s unnamed secret agent who is sent by the secretary to ‘handle’ the hostage situation. He turns out to be really bad at directions and his job in general. Most of the film’s laugh-out-loud moments come from his parallel B-plot.

While most of the comedic situations are derived from puns and misunderstandings, the comedy keeps you entertained from start to finish.The film also thanks Bachchan for being an inspiration to fellow artistes and is dedicated to the late actor-producer Puneeth Rajkumar.

The Kannada feature film does satire in a lighter manner but delivers in all the right places. Be sure to check out the credits for the hilarious epilogue as well.

One Cut Two Cut is now available on Amazon Prime VIdeo.