To say that Rajpal Yadav’s Kaam Chalu Hai is well-intentioned would be an understatement. The story centres round Manoj Patil, whose daughter dies in a road accident caused by a pothole. When the authorities refuse to help him, Patil, inspired by a true incident, decides to fill up all those craters himself.
There is genuine pain in the narrative which holds up a mirror to the indifferent government. But that feeling could have been equally achieved through a newspaper report. When it comes to touching you where you live, the film doesn’t even try. It goes for broke in portraying suffering and winds up with an unnecessarily melodramatic and often dreary tale.
Palaash Muchhal has written and directed the film besides composing its music. This is his second venture with Yadav after Ardh came out earlier this year (2022). For most parts of his career, the actor has thrived on playing small-time comic relief characters so it is hard not see beyond that image now. But he has shown enough range as an actor in Apurva (2023) before this one of his rare serious outings to suggest that he can rise above such limitations if given half a chance.
Even in Kaam Chalu Hai, his feelings find an honest outlet but it doesn’t help that the film doesn’t want to look any further than they actually go. In one scene during the second half portion of the movie, he visits the very pothole which claimed his daughter’s life; sits next to it and starts crying softly at first before gradually building up strength of sobbing etcetra till everything becomes just too much et cetera more awkward than evocative because there had been no build-up whatsoever towards what should have been catharsis or at least some kind of release valves being opened within those emotions themselves instead having everything happen once without any evidence shown having anything coming after it.
There’re many such moments here where underlying feelings are too weak to sustain them. Cinema takes real-life stories and shapes them into narratives that grip us tight. But this one, in its bid to keep the tale true, gives more importance to predictability and trauma porn than anything else. Everything about the film feels like a throwback or something out of order.
Being well Intentioned doesn’t cut it when you fall short on execution. What sets apart a newspaper from a movie are key scenes which amplify emotional weight through their filmic language. It’s not adding anything new beyond what was already there in the trailer. Even with an 80-minute runtime, it struggles for survival, stretching things thin for reasons only known best by those behind the camera. Kaam Chalu Hai is strictly an issue-based film with mostly familiar beats and plot holes (pun intended) galore up its sleeve.
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