Writer-director Pulkit has quietly become one of the most prolific filmmakers strutting around Hindi cinema these days. Red Chillies Entertainment’s blue-eyed boy has had four releases in the last two years, with two more currently in production.
His finest work to date is his previous team-up with Netflix—2024’s Bhumi Pednekar-starrer Bhakshak. His latest, Kartavya, is a cousin of that film. Kartavya is not quite as concentrated, focused, and hardhitting as Bhakshak, but wrestles with similar themes of lone heroes taking a stand against injustice, systemic corruption, and the power structures that allow those at the top to prey on children.
Meet Pawan (Saif Ali Khan in fine form), SHO of the fictional north Indian town of Jhamli. The opening scene sees his fellow officers, led by his right-hand man Ashok Ji (Sanjay Mishra continues to be one of the best things about Pulkit’s films), cutting a cake for Pawan’s 40th birthday (the film makes it a point to tell us his age).
