Kaalidhar Laapata: Earnest Performances Can’t Save This Remake

Kaalidhar Laapata fails to capture the original's magic despite earnest performances.

Abhishek Bachchan in a still from Kaalidhar Laapata.

(Photo Courtesy: YouTube) 

Kaalidhar Laapata is the latest in a long line of Hindi remakes of successful Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam language movies, from Dhrishyam to Vikram Vedha to Deva. Setting aside questions of originality and an ongoing creative crisis, many of these remakes feel dull and uninspired.

They are often a watered-down version of the original, with arbitrary changes to make the film more palatable to mainstream Hindi audiences, or a copy-paste of the narrative beats without sufficiently developing the characters and their worlds.

Produced by Zee Studios and Emmay Entertainment, Kaalidhar Laapata, a remake of KD (Karuppu Durai), suffers from many of these pitfalls, despite its wonderful, heartwarming premise.

Written and directed by Madhumita, the 2019 Tamil-language original, KD, follows an 80-year-old Karuppu Durai who has been in a coma for three months. One day, he hears his sons plotting to kill him to inherit his property and runs away from home. In the process, he meets Kutty, a eight-year-old orphan who’s starkly different from him. KD follows their unlikely relationship and growing bond as Kutty convinces Karuppu to make a bucket list and live his life for himself. 

A Compelling Premise Diluted by Safe Choices

Helmed by Madhumita herself, Kaalidhar Laapata released on Zee5 on 4 July. It follows this same story, except its titular character (Abhishek Bachchan) is significantly younger and experiencing memory loss.

Here, it’s his brothers and sister-in-law plotting to leave him at the Kumbh Mela, after a failed attempt to have him killed at the hospital. The orphan’s name is Ballu (Daivik Baghela), and the tracker character is Subodh (Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub), who feels personally committed to finding Kaalidhar.

Abhishek Bachchan and Daivik Baghela in a still from Kaalidhar Laapata.

(Photo Courtesy: YouTube) 

The story is ripe for emotional resonance. Kaalidhar, we learn, has been a devoted older brother who’s always put his family first, only for his brothers to turn on him when he’s no longer financially useful.

This is a rich backdrop to explore these messy family dynamics, being an elder sibling burdened with familial responsibility, and the immense difficulties of caregiving for an elder, especially with the onset of Alzheimer's or dementia. 

Characters That Speak, But Rarely Feel

But Kaalidhar Laapata feels too immersed in reverse-engineering the magic of the original without giving you enough time to connect with the characters, experience their journeys with them, and feel the emotions on your own. Both Kaalidhar and Ballu feel more like concepts than people; we don’t get to know them enough beyond their basic characteristics and biographies, most of which we get told through expository dialogue between them.

There is also a sense of inevitability that they will have a bond from the moment they meet, rather than having it unfold organically. Many of their scenes together feel contrived, too obviously staged for a particular effect, rather than a natural part of a story.

The tacky background music doesn’t help, not only underlining the emotions of each scene but also often preempting them, thus further drawing attention to the film’s artifice. 

Even when Kaalidhar and Ballu have conflict, especially towards the end of Kaalidhar Laapata, it gets resolved almost immediately, rather than using it as a springboard to examine Kaalidhar’s trauma and why he behaves the way he does. As a result, the film lacks the depth and insight necessary to rouse the pathos it wants to evoke. 

Abhishek Bachchan in a still from Kaalidhar Laapata.

(Photo Courtesy: YouTube) 

Earnest Performances, Inconsistent Screenplay 

The main problem is the lacklustre, inconsistent screenplay that takes the efficacy of its larger premise for granted. This undermines the otherwise earnest and effective performances. Abhishek Bachchan plays Kaalidhar with much heart and empathy, but he sometimes overplays the character’s brooding and self-pity.  

Besides one traumatic flashback and a medical condition, the writing doesn’t render him a character complex enough for Bachchan to fully excel in, like he did in Shoojit Sircar’s I Want to Talk.

Meanwhile, Daivik Baghela is superb as Ballu, a foil character to Kaalidhar. Baghela is a scene-stealer. He completely won my heart with his portrayal of an orphan who refuses to pity himself and wields his self-assuredness and zest for life as weapons against societal neglect. But his character, too, succumbs to tropes, never allowed to be a full person beyond his tragic circumstances. 

The same applies to the supporting characters, who jostle for space as Kaalidhar Laapata meanders, especially towards the end. Kaalidhar’s scheming brothers and sister-in-law are never depicted as stereotypically villainous, yet the film has no time to give them more of an arc.

Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub in a still from Kaalidhar Laapata.

(Photo Courtesy: YouTube) 

Even Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub has a solid screen presence as Subodh, but it remains fleeting and doesn’t manage to make the impression the actor is capable of.

Nimrat Kaur is particularly underutilised as Meera, Kaalidhar’s old love interest, with whom he reconnects in a rather disjointed subplot. 

A Missed Chance to Say Something New 

Kaalidhar Laapata is also tonally confusing. It focuses on poverty and heavy themes surrounding family, betrayal, and what it means to live on the margins. But it never meaningfully delves into these topics, feeling neither gritty nor profound.

The film wants to be a lighthearted comedy, but barely generates any laughs. So it feels stuck between these genres, unable to commit to a register.

All this would have been forgivable if Kaalidhar and Ballu’s relationship felt more convincing. At its core, Kaalidhar Laapata is a well-intentioned story about an unlikely friendship between an old, disillusioned person grappling with his toxic family and a young, sprightly kid who’s never had one to begin with. Their relationship represents the power of human connection in the face of adversity and a radical subversion of the inherent harshness and materialism of our world. 

It deserved a better film with more faith in its characters and audience. Instead, it joins the laundry list of lazy Hindi-language remakes that make you wonder: was this really necessary?

(Kaashif is a writer and film critic from Mumbai, currently based in London. He is the Assistant Culture Editor of The Polis Project.)