Animal: Moral Police’s Most Wanted

With Animal being Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s third directorial venture following the highly idiotic Kabir Singh and Arjun Reddy, I was skeptical Vanga would again resort to taking the route of displaying unnecessarily controversial stuff on the big screen as a tactic to take a satirical whip at his critics, or the ‘woke batch’ – 3 hours of the protagonist doing the most nonsensical things being made to look epic by the background music which blasts at full force at any random time of the movie without regard to the circumstances (Kabir Singh summed up). But boy was I proved wrong. Animal is a well directed film which delivers everything it promised – a violent, gory and disturbing presentation of a toxic father – son relationship, albeit not free from its shortcomings.

 

The first half of the movie is its better half, although it has it flaws. After the opening half an hour, the film transitions into a slightly puzzling delineation of past and present events which makes it somewhat difficult to keep track of the ongoing storyline. Having said that, it is worth crediting Vanga because at some points, there is a rather smooth transition from present to past backed by impactful screenplay which lends a helping hand to character building in the movie, which is of immense importance, as the film is heavily character oriented and treats the storyline aspect as a second priority. The plot is quite simple – to put in oversimplified terms, it is basically how Ranvijay (played by Ranbir Kapoor) seeks revenge for an assassination attempt at his father Balbir (played by Anil Kapoor). Not much attention is given to amplify the storyline, although, a few twists are effectively placed here and there. 

 

The highlight of the first half is the pre interval action sequence which lasts for around 20 minutes. It is violent, bloody, and beautifully choreographed, although divorces itself from reality after a point. The scene is elevated by the background music and Manan Bhardwaj and Bhupendra Babbal’s Arjan Vailly – it plays as Ranbir slashes and hacks through hundreds of goons, making for a exhilarating theatre experience. Safe to say, Vanga lives up to his promise of showing the audience what real violence is. 

 

The second half can be best described as a missed opportunity. It almost seems as if in a bid to draw further ire from critics, Vanga veers off from the sound platform laid down by the first half, and bombards the film with a string of controversial scenes and dialogues, which do very little to advance the plot line. And it is perhaps this segment of the film that has drawn most flak from the moral police – exactly what Vanga seemed to want. And it is also due to this segment that the massive run time starts to sting.

 

The biggest missed opportunity is that of Bobby Deol. What could’ve been a well written and layered antagonist is merely reduced to a brute force which is quelled within a matter of about ten minutes. Deol is brilliant in whatever scant screentime he gets, and it is his introduction which awakes the film from falling into a slumber of what could have been another 'controversial hot water bag'. The fact that he nails his job without dialogues makes this all the more impressive, but then again, the screen time he gets is the biggest let down. The promise his role offered is left half baked. Despite all this, the final act is somewhat successful in its attempt to clutch straws left behind by the first half and ends on a high note owing to the penultimate scene which is arguably the best in the movie. 

 

Moving on to the music, Animal has a wonderful album with songs which don’t act as fillers for the audience to catch a break during the movie, but rather advance the story which is another testament to Vanga’s directorial prowess. Ranbir Kapoor is the driving force throughout the entire film – only he could’ve pulled off such a challenging role with such excellence.

 

On a concluding note, while viewing this movie, I was well aware that this would quickly become the moral’s police’s most wanted, and this is my personal opinion on all the controversy surrounding the movie. Movies, particularly fictional, should be viewed strictly after shunning your moral lens, since they are nothing more than a creative expression of the director and if we start to nit pick the fallacies of these artistic expressions by taking the moral high ground, the beauty of cinema falls apart. Yes, the movie is problematic if seen from a moral and ethical viewpoint, but one needs to understand that whatever is shown is to portray a morally grey character, and is entirely fictional. With that being said, if you go in to watch Animal purely treating it as a medium of entertainment, you won’t be disappointed. Would recommend.