First things first. The amalgamation of indie maestro Dibakar Banerjee and mainstream movie-maker Yash Raj Films has led to an unlikely crossbreed. And this child makes for difficult, uncomfortable viewing as hammers are heartlessly stroked onto heads that spill blood the way a faulty truck would leak oil. Amidst the sudden burst of violence, a woman (Shivani Raghuvanshi) shrieks and pees in her pants, a normal reflex that would be later used to remind her of her vulnerability.
You see, in Titli's world, which consists of three brothers who hijack cars for a living, this brutality is routine to the point that the neighbours behave as if they live next to people with a bank job. Welcome to Delhi's most-ignored neighbourhood, a ghetto-like neglected space that exists alongside swanky skyscrapers forever under construction, a reality that is glaringly at odds with our cosmopolitan culture, one that you encounter only in newspaper headlines and over-dramatic crime shows.
Who are these people who live on the fringes? What are their aspirations? Do they dream of a future that's closer to the mall mannequins or they've come to terms with the maddening mayhem they are already an active part of? Behl's script (written with Sharat Katariya who directed Dum Lagake Haisha) intrudes that psyche, their desire for 'normal' family-life and comes out with some startling, gut-wrenching insights.
Ranvir Shorey plays Vikram, the eldest of three siblings and also the most hot-headed of the trio. While Amit Sial is the relatively composed middle sibling Pradeep, Shashank Arora's Titli is the youngest. He is also the one who is impatient to escape his dystopian reality, a struggle that constantly turns futile.
And this what Behl taps into: the helplessness of the struggle to break-free from the criminal gutter, the uncertainty in which these dysfunctional lives are led. The bad guys steal from the good ones who go to the police who in turn catch the bad ones only to steal back the already-stolen. So who's the guardian of the wrongdoings that happen to criminals? Or that's not considered wrong at all? It is this scenario, the film argues, that perhaps propels the outlaws to sink deeper into their persistently horrid circumstances. And the result is sheer horror, one that forces them to confront their own limitations and turn their backs against one another.
For a debut film, Behl shows remarkable promise. The claustrophobic confines of Titli's tiny apartment reveal their dark intimacy while the loud brushing of teeth, first done by Ranvir's character and then by Shashank's Titli, expose the fact that he isn't as different from the rest of them as he'd like to be. The father is the quite spectator but one can tell from the subdued tension that in this family, crime is the only inheritance, valuable or not.
The sharpest feature of Titli is Ranvir's outstanding performance which is perhaps his career-best. He sinks his teeth into the temperamental Vikram and makes it his own with controlled shrieks and an anger that is emoted as well as it is articulated. On the other hand, one wishes that the guy in the title role was better cast. Shashank has a slight vibe of sophistication that becomes his biggest undoing while the expressions are limited and charisma, completely missing.
The wife's part, played by Shivani, is solid as she switches comfortably from being a manipulator to victim to an unlikely ally in a character that is fully-rounded, fully-realised and frighteningly realistic.
Which is where the film scores. As much as one would like to believe this to be a story from a pulpy crime novel, the reality of it is not all that improbable. Ultimately, the film is about a bunch of guys stuck in an unfortunate situation which continues to get dense.
Titli's desire to escape - as encapsulated in his dream to own a spot in a mall's parking lot - gives it a humane quality, shows a road to redemption.
But that road reaching completion is as probable as the truck with the leaking oil tank arriving at its destination.
Image Source: twitter/TitliTheFilm