Animal, starring "superstar" Ranbir Kapoor, Rashmika Mandanna, Anil Kapoor and Bobby Deol and helmed by Sandeep Reddy Vanga, has broken all box-office records. It is undoubtedly Ranbir's biggest "commercial success" at the movies.
I'd be lying if I said that the trailer of the film didn't get me excited too. I was looking forward to the film's release and watch Ranbir shine on the big screen. Yes, the trailer had a few dialogues that irked me, but that's a given in a Vanga film, I thought. Ranbir was outstanding in the trailer and to be fair, as an actor, he is brilliant in the film too. But I assumed this film would be, as RK mentioned in a press-conference, an A-rated version of Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, about a father-son bond. But his film about daddy issues has many issues. I address a few.
1. Ranvijay (Ranbir) goes to his sister Reet's college with a gun and shoots all over the classroom to scare the students bullying her. What happens after that? Nothing. No cops involved, parents of the students don't complain, the principal doesn't bother. No consequences whatsoever except his father yelling at him. That's it. How does this schoolboy with a machine gun justify his behaviour? He casually tells his dad that someone's got to take care of the family, and since the father is always busy making money, it's the responsibility of the other "man of the house" to make sure the family is safe. "Papa, forget law and order for 5 minutes and tell me if I'm wrong", he tells his father Balbir Singh (Anil Kapoor). That's the audience's cue to forget about law and order for the next 3 hours. Btw, Balbir Singh owned that college, even a complaint to the principal would have sufficed. But naaaa... agar kaha behen ko kuch, baap ka college bhi jala denge. In our version, we'd call Rohit Shetty and borrow a few cops from his cop universe.
Fun fact: There were gunshots and grenades in almost every scene, but not a single cop in the entire film, not even as props.
2. Ranvijay meets Geetanji (Rashmika) after a few years, while she is getting engaged, and does his own version of "yeh meri bandi hai". After just five minutes of mansplaining and manipulating, our "alpha male" manages to convince her that she needs to call off her engagement and be with him... and voila! Our girl is convinced that she wants to spend the rest of her life with him because agar mil gaya ek red flag, sab green flags bhula denge. Also, the scene ends with our alpha male telling Ms know-nothing-at-all, "You have a big pelvis, you'll produce healthy children" IRL, a woman would have slapped a man, but here Geetanjali was swayed and wants yeh papa issues wala aadmi as her bacchon ka papa. In our version, Geetanjali would marry the guy she was engaged to, and Ranvijay would move on to being obssessed with his father. Their marriage didn't add much to the story anyway, except give some cringey, sexist dialogues.
3. Sorry Tripti fans, who just discovered her after her short cameo in the film, but her plot was absolutely unnecessary. I would remove it completely. Yes, Ranvijay was flawed since the beginning, but at least we thought he respected women. Remember how he asks his older sister to leave the husband because he hits her or how he asks the younger one to choose wisely and join their father's business and make good use of her degree instead of marrying a loser? Or even when he loses his cool on all his cousins for cheating on their wives with the hookers? This same man cheats on his wife with Zoya... why? because agar papa ko ho gaya kuch, saara character hila denge! I am not even getting into the "lick my shoe" and other moments from this plot because in the edited version, this plot doesn't exist. And to all Tripti fans, sorry to break it to you, but she was wasted in this film - go watch Qala or Bulbul instead, you'll see the actor she is.
4. In the first half of the film, Ranvijay asks his sister Reet to leave her husband because he was abusive and patronising, in the second half he is exactly that or actually worse. There's a scene where he pulls his wife's bra strap and every time he does it, she complains that it's hurting her, but this "Animal" continues. There's another scene where he asks her to remove her top, you can see the house help standing in the background, but Geetanjali happily disrobes. In Vanga's world, it's all good in the hood, because as the director once said, "If you can't slap, if you can't touch your woman wherever you want, I don't see emotion there." I'm sure Vanga would justify this as agar tumhe denge dard, toh marham bhi laga denge... In our version, she'd grab him by the balls and leave... definitely not feel guilty about giving her sadistic husband food with salt that wasn't swad anusar.
5. I really enjoyed Bobby Deol's character Abrar Haque's entry - liked the song and the way he danced to it, to be precise... and after watching the trailer, was really looking forward to seeing "Lord Bobby" on the big screen after so long. During the song, it's established that he has two wives already and is getting married to the third woman because she's pregnant with his child. Right after the song is over, he mercilessly kills the man who brings the news of his brother's death - now that's enough to tell the audience that he is probably a worse breed of Animal than Ranvijay - but NO! Seconds later, he goes and has sex with his pregnant wife, and then calls the other two wives for the same... This scene was absolutely not required in the film but the director added it anyway - why? because agar bhai ke marne ka hai gham, biwiyon ko ghulam bana denge. In our version, Abrar would be single because Geetanjali still had a part to play in the film, Abrar's wives had no reason to exist.
6. In our version, Geetanjli leaves her husband Ranvijay on the very auspicious day of Karva Chauth. Can't believe she actually had sex with him instead, after yelling at him (for what seemed like an hour) for cheating on her and after he wakes up his kids with that gunshot. Have to say, the kids aren't even shocked that guns are being used in maa-baap ki ladayi - just a normal day in the Ranvijay household? Because... Agar kaha papa ke baare mein kuch, biwi pe bhi gun utha lenge. Btw, did I mention that he validates the cheating by saying that Zoya was the mole who needed to be trapped in his love if he wanted to know who wanted his "papa" killed?
7. I'd actually end the film at interval. The shot of Ranvijay lying in a pool of blood would have been a good way to end the film and tease 'Animal Park'. I'd wait for the audience's feedback, introspect and think where I went wrong as a storyteller, dig deeper into the characters and alter them for the sequel because agar leni hai kuch responsibility, box office number bhula denge.
There's a lot more in the film that's added just for no reason at all. Like, Ranvijay walking naked after miraculously losing weight overnight to shock the family (yeah, sure it wasn't overnight, but he acts like it was and made it look like even the wife wasn't aware of this physical transformation). There's another scene where Ranvijay asks his therapist about her sex life, or Ranvijay's visit to the church, or when he tells his pind de cousins "shaadi mein pakkad honi chahiye... meri toh gayi" - these scenes were probably added for, what the director may have thought would be, comic relief, but were they funny and at what cost?
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