UA2 hrs 15 minsReleased: 4 Sep, 2026
BengaliDrama & Thriller
A doctor and his son follow different ideals while working in their profession, which creates conflict. Whether the two give up their stubborn beliefs and unite for the greater cause of saving humankind will be seen in the film
Cast & Crew
Daktar Kaku Movie Review: A promising idea lost in execution
Raima Ganguly
TNN, Sep 20, 2026, 1:23 PM IST
Pavel’s Daktar Kaku attempts to weave together family, ideology, medicine and class through the story of Dr Dilip Saha, played by Prosenjit, a committed doctor with leftist ideals who raises his son Puskin singlehandedly after his wife’s death. He also adopts Pocha and Mampi, the children of a patient who dies on the same evening as his wife. Fishmongers by birth, the siblings grow up alongside Puskin, with Dr Saha eventually training both Puskin and Pocha to become doctors.The film’s central conflict emerges from the two brothers’ differing ideas about the profession. While Pocha remains deeply grateful to Dr Saha, regards him as his guru and embraces his humanistic approach to medicine, Puskin gradually begins to see his father’s ideology as a limitation. His resentment is rooted partly in his mother’s death. Dr Saha had left home to attend to a patient that day, and Puskin grows up holding him responsible for his absence at a moment when he needed him. As the brothers grow older, their shared affection is tested by increasingly divergent ideas about what a doctor should be.Puskin gravitates towards a more business minded approach to medicine, while Pocha remains committed to its service-oriented dimension and never loses sight of his roots. The contrast has the potential to make for a compelling exploration of privilege, ideology and the commercialisation of healthcare. Unfortunately, Daktar Kaku tries to accommodate too many ideas without giving enough of them the dramatic depth they require. The storyline often feels stretched merely to establish a point, while several developments arrive with a convenience that makes the conflicts feel constructed rather than organic. The characters, too, are not written with enough nuance to make their ideological differences fully convincing.The film is at its most watchable when Prosenjit is on screen. As Dr Saha, he brings conviction and emotional restraint to a character who could easily have become a one note ideological figure. His performance provides the film with an anchor, holding together a narrative that otherwise tends to meander. Pavel, who also directs the film, brings warmth to Pocha, particularly in his scenes with Dr Saha, giving their relationship some of the film’s more affecting moments.Riddhi’s Puskin, however, is less consistently convincing, partly because the writing does not sufficiently build the emotional journey behind his resentment. The transformation from a son sharing an affectionate bond with his father to one increasingly opposed to his worldview needed greater psychological grounding. Similarly, the brothers’ eventual ideological conflict feels more like a narrative requirement than the painful unravelling of a relationship the film has spent considerable time establishing.Technically, the film is uneven. The makeup is particularly distracting, often drawing attention to itself rather than helping the characters inhabit their respective ages. The visual treatment also fluctuates, although there are moments of intelligent filmmaking. A conversation between Puskin and Mr Damani (Rajatava Dutta) inside an elevator, for instance, uses the confined, ascending and descending space effectively to suggest Puskin’s oscillation between opposing ideas of right and wrong. Such touches indicate a visual sensibility that the film could have employed more consistently.The biggest problem, however, remains the uneven writing. Daktar Kaku clearly wants to say something about the kind of doctor one chooses to become, the inheritance of ideology and the tensions between gratitude, ambition and family. But its many ideas rarely coalesce into a compelling whole. There are stretches where the film appears to be explaining its point rather than allowing its characters to embody it.Prosenjit ultimately does much of the heavy lifting. His presence gives the film an emotional centre and a sense of conviction that the screenplay frequently lacks. Daktar Kaku has the makings of a thoughtful family drama about two brothers shaped by the same father but pulled towards very different versions of his legacy. It simply never finds a sufficiently assured way to bring all those strands together.
Videos
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Daktar Kaku – Official Teaser
20 days ago
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