Loop Lapeta
Director: Aakash Bhatia
Cast: Taapsee Pannu, Tahir Raj Bhasin
It was Japanese auteur Akira Kurosawa who first made a movie that narrated the same story in myriad ways. It was Rashomon and it won the Golden Lion for Best Picture at Venice in 1951. In a way, German helmer Tom Tykwer’s 1998 Run Lola Run followed the Japanese master’s style, dividing a single plot into three different climaxes. We now have Aakash Bhatia’s Looop Lapeta, which has been inspired by the German film – though with several tweaks.
While in Run Lola Run, it is the woman and her boyfriend, Manni, who take turns to die, in Bhatia’s work, he invariably is the victim. Both Run Lola Run and Looop Lapeta, though, stick to identical climaxes. Unfortunately, like most Indian movies, Looop Lapeta wanders away from the core plot – which is to get the Rs 50 lakhs that Satya (Tahir Raj Bhasin) lost while he is on his way to deliver it. The money belongs to a gangster, and Satya knows that unless he can rustle up the amount, he would lose his life. He calls up his girlfriend, Savi (Taapsee Pannu) – a marathon sprinter – who begins her run, an endless run through the lanes and by-lanes of Goa to help Satya.
When her father, a rich gym owner with whom she had a strained relationship, refuses to give her the money, she and Satya hatch a plan to rob a jewelry shop (in the German version, it is a bank).
There are too many hurdles for Savi to cross, and this includes a reluctant cab driver moping over the loss of his lover, who is all set to take her marriage vows with another guy. In the shop — run by a seemingly stupid guy, who though has a revolver tucked inside his desk drawer — two young men are preparing to loot their own father! They barge inside wearing funny masks, and this certainly dilutes what is a serious life-and-death plot.
A major problem with Looop Lapeta is its tendency to digress wildly, and ending up as a silly rom-com. It uses a Wong Kar-wai color palette to pep up the narrative, but falls flat – losing much of its tempo.
If writers, including Bhatia, imagined that this this kind of neither-here-nor-there treatment would help keep the plot moving, they could not have been more wide off the mark. What is even more regrettable is a wasted Pannu, whose performance potential is sadly under utilised, though Bhasin is somewhat more impressive than his earlier appearance in Yeh Kaali Kaali Ankhein.
In the final analysis, Looop Lapeta attempts to retell a classic like Run Lola Run, but slips and falls in its race against time to meet a deadly deadline. Much of its “innovation” (perhaps to suit Indian tastes) turns out to be dry and drab – with Run Lola Run far, far ahead in style and substance.
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