From the successful and acclaimed maker of Arjun Reddy and Kabir Singh, comes Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s next big expression of raw, intense, loud, full-on, alpha-male, testosteronama - Animal. And looking at the box office collection, it seems to be hitting the spot with the audience.
The story is about Vijay (Ranbir Kapoor), who grows up idolizing his father in the most extreme way, but without ever getting love or attention in return, due to his father Balbir Singh’s (Anil Kapoor) unavailability, both physically as well as emotionally. As a result, he grows up angry and yet always wanting to prove himself to his father, and to the world, that not only is he a man, but that he is the alpha among men, born to rule and lead. But no matter what he does, he can never win his father’s approval, whether he is protecting his sister from bullying by firing guns in college or marrying his childhood love, Gitanjali (Rashmika Mandanna), or for that matter, just basically being himself. The story then takes a turn, when his father is shot at (but recovers) by unknown assassins, which forces Vijay to return with his wife and kids from the US, to take charge of the situation, overhauling the entire setup in the way he feels right, and going on a revenge killing rampage against the enemy, following one bloodshed after another, till every last one of his enemy is brutally dead (well almost, watch out for part 2!). In the process, costing him almost his own life, his health, his marriage, his sanity, and his relationships. And after all this, does his father finally love him? Well….
Let’s get the most obvious thing on the table first. I totally get the need for a movie like this and what Vanga is all about. There is a place in cinema, just like in the world for creating spaces to allow for pure male expression. Just like there is place for creating spaces to allow for pure female expression. If we think of these spaces (and therefore content) as 2 intersecting Venn Diagram Circles, then there’s the part of the circles that are either only male or only female. And there’s that overlapping part in the middle that is common space for both male and female. And no gender should fault the other for enjoying or reveling in the expression of their gender as they feel….BUT, as long as it is not at the expense of the other gender and as long as it doesn’t foster a regressive path, that we’ve all been fighting so hard against.
This film is squarely in the only male box. Just like Kabir Singh and Arjun Reddy.
And just like Arjun Reddy/Kabir Singh, the collective male catharsis that the film delivers through every bloodshed scene, through the raw passion for one’s lover, through the blatant acceptance of the male body, and through the loud rejection of the quiet misogyny of our society, strikes a chord and is really what makes the movie worth watching.
But unlike Kabir Singh (read my review here…), Animal fails to deliver a complete experience.
The main problem with the film is while it seems to suggest that there is one central plot, there are actually too many stories being told at the same time, all of which don’t connect with each other too well, giving us a disjointed emotional experience. Plot 1 (the supposed central plot) is that a boy growing up without the love and attention of his alpha father, turns into a super-alpha male himself, with anger issues and destructive tendencies. Plot 2 is the business family feud that’s been running for generations, hidden from plain view that opens up like a mystery, throughout the movie till the end. Within Plot 2 itself, there are multiple layers - the estranged family in Punjab, the next generation of an angry family member in Scotland, someone being trained in Turkey, etc etc. And finally, there is Plot 3, the love story between Vijay and Gitanjali. Trying to tell all these stories at the same time, each having a very different rhythm and tone, makes us hop from one emotion to another, not fully allowing ourselves to feel any one of them. One minute, you’re feeling the passion that Vijay and Gitanjali are sharing, the next minute you’re reminded of this unloved boy’s story, and the next minute you’re immersed in the gang war family feud intense action sequence. And the worst part is that the writer is trying hard all the while, trying to connect all these stories to the supposed central plot of an unloved boy. As a result, while we enjoy some of the sequences, as a whole the movie just doesn’t come together as one piece, leaving us with fragments of action, dialogues, bloodlust, and anger. Especially after the intermission when it just meanders into unnecessary and new, complicated characters and stories. In fact, in the last hour of the movie, we’re introduced to a whole ecosystem of espionage and characters in Abrar, Aziz, and Zoya, among others, that suddenly become central to the storyline, which, I must say, is quite annoying to an audience that’s already given two and a half hours of their time and attention (more than what Vijay’s father gave him his entire life!)
By contrast, Kabir Singh was a single-minded love story and that’s why it worked beautifully.
To be sure, Animal is NOT Kabir Singh, by a mile!
Also, we realize that Ranbir Kapoor is NOT Shahid Kapoor. While Ranbir puts up a good performance (much better than some of the hamming he’s been doing lately, and MUCH better than the disaster of Tu Jhooti Main Makkar), he is not able to pull off the different shades of the alpha intensity that Shahid portrayed in Kabir Singh. Ranbir’s acting is uni-dimensional. Showing alpha behavior equals loud and aggressive. Whereas, Shahid explored his alpha character also through his quietness, and through his solitude, through his tears, and even through his passing out, in addition to his loudness and aggressiveness.
The other missed opportunity in this film is Anil Kapoor. Given that so much of the raison d'etre of the story was the absentee dad, we don’t get to see that side of the story explored at all. There’s a weak attempt in the last scene (and some mumbling between the mom and dad), but it just falls like a damp squib. If this was the central idea, how come it was not treated that way?
Perhaps the challenge is Vanga making his first original film in Hindi. Arjun Reddy was conceived, written, and made in Telugu end to end. And then Kabir Singh was a copy-paste in Hindi. Perhaps conceiving and writing for Hindi cinema is what made the storytelling confusing and less impactful. We’ve seen this before as well, even with the legendary filmmaker Mani Ratnam, where his original Tamil masterpieces dubbed (like Roja or Bombay) or remade in Hindi (like Yuva or Saathiya) were brilliant pieces of work, but those originally conceived in Hindi (like Dil Se or Raavan) were less so.
Whatever the reason Arjun Reddy/Kabir Singh were fab films. Animal is not!
But, what does stay with us as we walk out of the theatres, is the very loud and very clear message.
Dads, please love your sons!
Else the whole world is going to pay for it!
My concern was disrespect to women,throughout the movie.
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