'Animal' movie review: Tight script more essential than tight slap, no?

Movie AnimalDirector Sandeep Reddy VangaActors Ranbir Kapoor Anil Kapoor Rashmika MandannaRating 25Knock out the final farty fifty minutes of this 202minute filmmdashincluding Bobby Deol barging in to make his pointless entry for whatever followsmdashand you may still have much to talk about The filmmakers could knock those portions out How does the audienceBest therefore to mull over Animal as we knew it to begin with Its supposed pointpurpose gets explained by the hero Ranbir Kapoor to the heroine Rashmika Mandanna mumbling her lines quite early onHe tells her that before civilization when the Early Man hunted in packs there was the soughtafter alpha male that women wished to birth children with while they cooked and cleaned and he brought food to the tableThe alpha male naturally garnering all the female attention as a result was hated by all other men physically subservient to him The latter in turn thought up useless stuff like poetry to charm the women with a bunch of beautiful lies they could never deliver onThis conversation occurs in the film when the said heroine is about to get married to a betagammadelta type it would seem She changes her plans overnight Goes with the hero The alpha male reigns supreme Thatrsquos the Ranbir Kapoor to be attracted to in this movieThis rich bratty hero grows up with daddy issuesmdashwhatever those are besides that his hardworking father solid Anil Kapoor has no time for him and mother adores him to death He fearlessly settles scores knowing might is rightThe boy canrsquot stand pretentious folks Hersquos drawn to other lsquoalphasrsquo he probably loves to surround himself with He deems himself ordained to protect his family including his two sistersBecause therersquos Ranbir with long hair and motorbike in this manchild role think of him as Sanju 2018mdashexcept not in a comedy which is what Raju Hirani turned that alphamale story into Letrsquos say these are chapters left over from that film if you mayThe Punjabi lsquoangry young manrsquo here is named Rannvijay in short Vijay His worldview including those to do with women is so archaicmdashI was viscerally intrigued by this character therefore the filmSimply because itrsquos so obviously baitlike politically incorrect at a time if therersquos ever been another where being gloriously incorrect on anything starting with politics of course seems risky enough to be nearabout impossible Even alphas along with all other Greek alphabets could savage you like animals for thisAnd itrsquos not like you have to agree with this character or his ways Which is the reason I noticed audiences wholly laughing at him in my cinema As and when he drops his inglorious gems on how the wife must be kept in control down to how men mustnrsquot shave their pubic hairThat is precisely what happened with director Sandeep Reddy Vangarsquos directorial debut Arjun Reddy 2017 in Telugu that he subsequently remade scene for scene in Hindi as Kabir Singh 2019The only issue I had with that film were those giving it a deeper moral meaningmdashof what such borderline misogyny as commercial success means to Indian societyI could only see people in splits while that movie was on as wellmdashenjoying the songs loving the antiherorsquos performance For instance Wolf of Wall Street or so many of Martin Scorsese movies from the POV of their lead characters could be deemed misogynistic Doesnrsquot mean those who loved them areShahid Kapoor starred as Kabir Singh in the Arjun Reddy remake If Animal had been made in Telugu it would certainly have had a Hindi versionRanbir is the hero in both languages Makes complete sense Except Animal isnrsquot in the same zone as the strongly characterdriven KSAR Itrsquos in fact closer to the gunfest madactioner Bloody Daddy 2023 that Shahid did laterRanbir has similarly been through a gun factory to overhaul his chocolate boy imagemdashripping his clothes off beating up the baddies over merciless handtohand combat spraying bullets like pesticide surviving a few like it doesnrsquot matterhellipHersquos just entered the Salman genre sidewaysmdashwith a picture that gives off pretenses of a family plus relationship drama The genre in the movie literally switches with a plane going up while the heroheroine are inside celebrating their honeymoonOut comes the bearded hero with a guerilla army behind him Transformation is complete Even emotionally you can tell Ranbir hasnrsquot given it his all this much since Rockstar 2011 Itrsquos his showBut this Macho Man Ranbir Savage stage is also when the test of steely patience begins You can tell the filmmakers were allowed scalemdashthey just didnrsquot know where to take it with a storylineAnd you start to notice the setting and wonder what this is about Itrsquos not a gangsterunderworld film which can still legitimately belong to the political spaceThe herorsquos dad worldrsquos richest man types runs a steel company named Swastika The hero gives a motivational speech to workers raising his hand like a Nazi heil Of course hersquos not thatSo then who is he when he isnrsquot bumping off blokes by the dozen with a ldquoMade in India aatmanirbharrdquo machine gun that vanquishes faceless enemies with no place to hideLetrsquos go back to the filmrsquos supposedly original intent thenmdashof a world before civilization In the movies of the past we had cops inevitably entering late into the scene of crimeThis worldrsquos got no cops altogether The women are practically muted Yeah ldquoItrsquos a manrsquos worldrdquo I get that But man who are these men And when does this stop

'Animal' movie review: Tight script more essential than tight slap, no?

Movie: Animal
Director: Sandeep Reddy Vanga
Actors: Ranbir Kapoor, Anil Kapoor, Rashmika Mandanna
Rating: 2/5

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Home / Entertainment / Bollywood News / Article / 'Animal' movie review: Tight script more essential than tight slap, no?

'Animal' movie review: Tight script more essential than tight slap, no?

Movie: AnimalDirector: Sandeep Reddy VangaActors: Ranbir Kapoor, Anil Kapoor, Rashmika MandannaRating: 2/5

Trending Stories

Latest Photos

Latest Videos

Latest Web Stories

Mid-Day Fast

Movie: Animal
Director: Sandeep Reddy Vanga
Actors: Ranbir Kapoor, Anil Kapoor, Rashmika Mandanna
Rating: 2/5