New Assamese film Casetu Nagen, directed by Dhanjit Das, is continuing its second-week run at the box office in the cinema halls of Assam. Released on May 11, 2025, the film starts off strong with a very interesting premise set in the remote village of Kachubari. The film builds suspense around a mysterious figure called Nagen and delivers a fairly enjoyable first half. The film employs Tapan Das as a narrator who introduces the villagers and the quirky individuals living in it. They are all greedy people who have been scammed under a network marketing scheme. When an outsider arrives in this remote village, seeking a mysterious Nagen with an equally mysterious bag and money to give him, every villager suddenly wants to be Nagen.
Casetu Nagen is essentially a rural comedy, and the performances by Siddhartha Mukherjee, Pranami Bora, Himanshu Prasad Das, Atanu Mahanta, Anamika Sarania, and others go well with the feel and demands of the film. But special mention goes to Amrita Gogoi, who finally breaks away from her recent string of unimpressive roles in the Chandra Mudoi universe. Veteran actor Atul Pachani also gets a good role in the film, as his recent choice of films has not been very impressive. There’s also a clever layer of political allegory at play in Casetu Nagen—the village represents an electorate and the scammers are exploitative systems, and Nagen stands as a metaphor for greed. The peppy title track by Kumar Bhabesh and Kool-d is also catchy, which works in favor of the film.
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However, the film stumbles in its second half. It reveals its central mystery of who Nagen is too soon, almost immediately after the interval. As a result, it kills the tension, making the rest of the plot feel predictable. Also, Casetu Nagen has too many similarities with Priyadarshan’s Malamaal Weekly—from its themes to its central characters. A rural community driven by greed, misunderstandings, and exaggerated character traits, both films use a mysterious event (a lottery in Malamaal Weekly, and a mysterious man with money to give in Casetu Nagen) as a springboard for chaos. There’s a cruel landlord in Casetu Nagen, whereas it’s a landlady in Malamaal Weekly who suppresses the villagers. And in Malamaal Weekly too, there’s a character that makes a living by selling cow milk mixed with water. So, the similarities are hard to miss.
But unlike its apparent inspiration in Malamaal Weekly, Casetu Nagen fails to develop meaningful subplots. Some stories within the main story of the film could have benefited the film in making the second half more interesting. There are a few strands in this regard – a pair of thieves, a love story, etc. – but they are not put into use as they should have been. And they disappear very quickly without any resolution, which is why the story doesn’t come together well as a whole. Towards the end, the film becomes too loud (a lot of beating and screaming) that it almost gets translated to crass cacophony. The film also fumbles basic continuity by asg an actor an age that clearly doesn’t match his appearance—making it hard to take the age of time in the plot seriously. How can the son of my friend be the same age as me?
Moreover, the village feels more like a set than a lived-in space because it is almost empty and it’s the same people everywhere. Casetu Nagen is a technically sound film with a very enjoyable first half, but it falters in its execution towards the climax. It reveals its own mystery instead of letting the characters work through it and find the answers. And this is why even if you are a fan of rural comedies, the second half may leave you wanting more. And this has to be said again: Assamese filmmakers are in dire need of some proofreading for the English subtitles of their films. It is a consistent error in all the recently released films, and Casetu Nagen is no exception.
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The film clearly warns audiences against falling for the lure of network marketing schemes, portraying them as scams that can lead to severe financial loss. It uses two characters who explicitly educate the villagers about the dangers of greed—this works as a Public Service Announcement but also feels like the film is revealing its intentions to the audience. Nowadays, audiences are smart enough to understand such messages without them being explicitly stated on screen, aren’t they?
In its second week, Casetu Nagen receives significant competition from the new release, Sasanka Samir’s Bhaimon Da, which is taking the box office by storm. With Roopak Gogoi’s Rudra coming up in less than two weeks, Casetu Nagen should soon make its way for an OTT release.
