Choked: Paisa Bolta Hai

“Where were you the evening most of the country’s currency notes were declared worthless? You remember, of course, for you dare not forget… Four years after demonetization, here is a Hindi film about that reverse alchemy—where money turned to paper. Choked.“

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“Few can get the authenticity of middle class Mumbai as spot on as Anurag Kashyap… His control is perfect in visualising the world of his characters. It is what he does in this world, is where the problems lie. While the premise of the story is catchy, the plot goes nowhere with it.”

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“It’s clear that Kashyap and Bhave are interested in exploring the ethical and moral questions around keeping what doesn’t belong to you, and the greed that it breeds. But it leads to a weak third act… ‘Choked’ has an intriguing premise at its heart but in raising the stakes the makers burden an intimate story of a strained marriage with a load it can’t carry.”

Rating: 2.5 stars | Full review

“A kitchen-sink drama – literally… The idea of being throttled plays out in a literal-minded way for Sarita. The better metaphor, which remains under-serviced, is the ominous sound that accompanies the surfacing of the cash from the drain, as though a swamp monster is making its way upwards. “

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“Most Anurag Kashyap films derive their power through a distinct voice. Sometimes it’s literal: dialogues, songs, background score. Sometimes metaphorical: postmodernist whims, absurd humour, gore. His films are feverish and busy, at times too busy, like a supple gymnast on ecstasy, always up for a trick or two. So, even when his movies don’t work, just the spectacle, encompassing all shades of desperation and ambition, invites intrigue. But his latest release, Choked, streaming on Netflix, is an outlier. At the outset, it’s not about quality, but authorial drive: is this even a Kashyap film?”

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“Cinematographer Sylvester Fonseca’s captures the innards of the building, the nooks and crannies of Sarita and Sushant’s home, with a keen eye that enhances the seamless integration of these spaces with the narrative. When human beings are reduced to ferreting for money, the frames necessarily have to attain ‘kitchen sink’ realism. The camera is alive to the challenge.”

Rating: 4 stars | Full review

“An imaginative little story about imaginative little people.”

Rating: 4 stars | Full review

“Modern art is political by nature – storytelling reflects the ideological core of its makers, some more obviously than others. Choked, though, is more of an exercise in dissent than a work of art.”

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“Choked doesn’t quite live up to its premise: it has some fine elements, but the connective tissue that binds it all together is a weak stretch… The connection between slush money and a sludgy drain-pipe is dirty and delicious. And the portrait of a marriage going bust is the strongest part… Given Kashyap’s skill-sets of melding the real with the bizarre, the twisted with the straight, this money heist had the potential to be a real zinger.”

Rating: 2 stars | Full review

“Choked is a film that, in my eyes, deserves a firm place in history, decades hence. Pardon the bombast, but in the same way that Garm Hava (1973) has.”

Rating: 3.5 stars | Full review

“I am not a plumbing expert but accepting a lot of what goes down and then gurgles up in Choked depends on your understanding of how sewage water and its contents travel down, as well as your low expectations from Netflix’s India content.There is a special kind of creative mediocrity that Netflix seems to be backing and funding in Indian. And Choked makes the cut.”

Rating: 2.5 stars | Full review

“There was much more to mine here underneath the complex layers of human emotions, and it was refreshing to see Kashyap continuing to experiment outside his typical comfort zone. But his political intent, his motivations, and the pressure to fall back to his own trap, eventually choked him and the film down.”

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