Identical twins of the kind that we encounter in Hindi popular cinema are always temperamentally polar opposites. The pair in Do Patti, a Netflix film directed by Shashanka Chaturvedi, is no exception - they look the same but are dissimilar in disposition and demeanour. The film, however, deviates from the larger narrative template that governs the genre. Mumbai movies may have stumbled upon a degree of freedom thanks to the advent of the streamers, but old habits die hard. Do Patti, scripted by Kanika Dhillon, has an old trope at its core. It, however, eschews the usual confusion-caused-by-mistaken-identity construct.
Do Patti is purply dark, a little suspenseful and somewhat twisted. The lookalikes in the film, which marks lead actress Kriti Sanon's first foray into production, detest/distrust each other. The stronger of the two girls has the upper hand and persistently paints the other into a corner.
Hinging primarily on the duo's divergences and confounding hostility, the plot threads its way into police (and legal) procedural territory. Enter an upright lady inspector. She receives a domestic violence complaint and resolves to get to the bottom of the truth.
Kriti Sanon essays a dual role, the first of her career. She understandably has more screen time than anyone else in the cast. Co-actor Kajol is the cop. She has never played one before.
Kanika Dhillon, acutely aware of the value Kajol brings to the table, gives her the room to tap into varied emotional registers. As a small-town police inspector who dons a lawyer's robe when the tale of two sisters turns overly thorny, Kajol holds all the aces. She uses them to great effect.
The screenwriter (who is also one of the film's two producers), the director and the two principal stars clearly know what the deal is. They do their very best to respond to its demands. Yet, as a mystery movie with twists and turns designed to keep the audience guessing, Do Patti plays a rather dull hand.
Kajol is the trump card, and that is a head start, but the film isn't quite as smart as it aspires to be. It isn't so much a whodunnit as a what-the-hell-is-happening kind of mild head-scratcher that eventually yields no major surprises.
The film's four key characters - the policewoman, the troubled twins and a wealthy, entitled young man who marries one of the siblings but still has the hots for the other - square off in a tussle that is about as absorbing as a lazy game of cards. It is a passable time-pass.
Do Patti has something to say on an issue of import. But it delivers no sucker punch. It is at best a series of feeble prods and gentle nudges that point the audience towards the spiralling tension between the sisters, Saumya and Shailee (Kriti Sanon).
The twins compete for the same man, Dhruv Sood (Shaheer Sheikh), son of a well-connected politician-businessman. That predictably worsens the friction that has festered since they were children.
The weighty concerns of Do Patti - generational trauma, abuse within the four walls of a home and corrosive masculinity - are embedded in a toxic love triangle whose fallout spills out of the family and attracts the attention of Inspector Vidya Jyoti Kanwar.
The twins (as babies and children, Saumya and Shailee are played by two sets of real-life sisters) are, like Seeta and Geeta, behaviourally different. One is sickly, staid and submissive. She is usually attired in modest salwar suits. The other, svelte and self-assertive, is adventurous and sporty. She wears flashier outfits.
At the age of eight, the pushy Shailee is sent to a hostel to stop her from constantly needling the meek Saumya even as a mild-mannered governess (Tanvi Azmi), the sole eyewitness to what the tougher sibling is up to, tries in vain to rein her in. Shailee grows up away from the family.
Many years later, she returns to the fictional hill town of Devipur. She hasn't forgotten her vow to settle scores with her estranged sister. Dhruv, in love with Saumya, marries her but not before he begins (and then sustains) a dangerous dalliance with the seductive Shailee.
Dhruv and Saumya's marriage, serene on the surface especially when seen from a distance, is far from ideal. The choppy relationship leads to an incident that throws the couple into the vortex of a police investigation.
Why do Hindi suspense movies gravitate so persistently towards hill stations enveloped in floating fog? Besides the obvious connection between mist and mystery, the idea probably is that the higher people dwell above sea level the deeper their psychological problems tend to be and the greater their urge to mask their true feelings.
Do Patti kicks off with a paragliding outing gone awry. The film circles back to the incident several times in the next couple of hours because a question lingers around that flashpoint: was it a murder attempt or a mere accident?
Inspector Vidya Jyoti, VJ for short, recently transferred to Devipur, isn't sure, but she has reason to believe there is more to the case than meets the eye. Saumya accuses her husband of trying to kill her. The latter pleads innocence. The cops have no way of knowing who is speaking the truth. So, Vidya Jyoti has no option but to dig deeper.
The inspector, a stickler for rules, is a lone ranger. She is single by choice. Her judge-father taught her the value of adhering to "the word of the law". From her lawyer-mother, she imbibed respect for "the spirit of the law".
Her colleague, Constable Katoch (Brijendra Kala), reminds her (for the benefit of the audience of course) that she once thought nothing of taking punitive action against her own brother. Family is family, Katoch says. Law is law, VJ replies.
After the opening paragliding sequence, the film cuts to three months earlier and the aforementioned suspected case of domestic violence. About half an hour before it ends, Do Patti reaches what feels like a climax - a courtroom battle. The film does not end there.
Kriti Sanon makes a fair fist of her double act, deftly shuffling the cards at her disposal for maximum effect. But, as has already been pointed out, if some parts of Do Patti are more watchable than others, it is because a solid and steady Kajol is in them.
Television actor Shaheer Sheikh has just enough to do in the female-centric film not to be an also-ran. Tanvi Azmi, who plays the character who serves as the link between the policewoman and the turbulent family the latter probes, stands out.
Do Patti is saddled with a weak hand. It needed much better cards to make a game of it.