Rahul Desai
Animal thinks it is a story about revenge. The story – if one must call it that – revolves around a man (Ranbir Kapoor) obsessed with hunting down the people who attacked his father (Anil Kapoor).
Animal is really a revenge story. It’s essentially a middle finger masquerading as a film. Director Sandeep Reddy Vanga seems to have launched a 203-minute offensive against the critics of his 2019 hit, Kabir Singh. This is, however, a very expensive rant.
It seems Vanga remembers the accusations so well that he’s unwittingly incriminating the legacy of Kabir Singh. You can almost hear the scripting process. Oh they had a problem with “this?” let’s give them more of it intensified.
It’s hurried and desperate, but also understandable. Having an entire scene (and words) at your disposal as a female character in a Vanga movie is such a rarity that she surrenders all her chips.
Anil Kapoor's character perpetually looks like a beta-patriarch, a narrative tease. Bobby Deol – the star of the trailer – who’s reduced to a time-extending gimmick for a story that can’t get enough of its own baiting.
Almost as though Animal sneers at the mirror after every shot and tries to love itself by hating on everyone else. It also yells ‘massy’ so that this label – as it usually does – eliminates the pressure to be responsible and gives it the license to be inane.