Kacchey Limbu is a feel-good film about cricket – the neighbourhood kind. A tournament in a housing society proves to be as momentous as the World Cup for a pair of siblings.
Akash (Rajat Barmecha) is the king of the gully cricket scene. The underarm deliveries that come his way are coolly dispatched with a series of sixes. No windows are shattered, but Akash’s equally cricket-mad sister Aditi (Radhika Madan) does see her own world sag with every stroke of Akash’s bat.
Smart and ambitious but also under-confident and confused, Aditi labours in her brother’s shadow. Overcoming a series of obstacles, Aditi puts together a ragtag team to compete for the next cricket contest.
Writer-director Shubham Yogi’s Hindi-language drama has been premiered on the JioCinema streaming platform. Though Kacchey Limbu is predictable to a fault, it is charming in its own way. The film is far more successful in the sweetly observed modest moments than in its attempted themes of woman’s self-empowerment and the privileging of boys over their sisters.
Akash’s treatment of his sister doesn’t get adequate play in a movie keen on sugar-coating the damage caused by sibling rivalry and parental neglect. In a less buoyant narrative, Akash would have been a jerk. Here, he’s merely misguided. Aditi’s arc is better explored, but there are times when she’s clearly flying solo.
The 106-minute movie unsurprisingly is the most alive during the tournament, for which the building secretary (Pradeep Nigam) provides breathless commentary (written by Neeraj Pandey). Like in any other cricket film, the screen is turned into a stadium as we breathlessly watch every spin of the ball, every flick of the bat. The warm performances bring the film to its extended climax, and then the cricket takes over.
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