Animal (Telugu) Review

Sandeep Reddy Vanga is back with another dazzling tour through the inside of his brain. A patron saint for boys without strong women role models, Vanga is seen as a philosopher of sorts first, and a filmmaker next. His debut film Arjun Reddy (remade as Kabir Singh in Hindi) got talked about for years for its provocative content rather than its technical merits. With Animal, Vanga seems determined to put his filmmaking skills front-and-centre, but boy does he still know how to needle us.

In Animal, a man (Ranbir Kapoor) is obsessively in love with his father and family. So much so that we know him first only as "the son of Balbir Singh", and only later as Ranveer Singh, heir to a massive fortune and a steel company named "Swastika". When an attempt is made on the life of Balbir Singh (Anil Kapoor), the prodigal son returns from the US and kicks off a bloody revenge plan that sees him hack and shoot hundreds of men to death. That just goes to show us how much he loves his father.

Animal teases several intriguing themes. We see rich privilege on full display when a young Ranveer brings a machine gun to school to threaten his sister's bullies, and faces no consequences. We see a caustic father-son relationship: Balbir the absentee father, and Ranveer the neglected son. But these themes get swallowed up by Vanga's self-indulgent take on his own philosophy about love, using Ranveer's character as his mouthpiece. And this is what he has to say: that sweet, cuddly emotion that we all call "love" is not love. Love is violent, love is brutal. Love makes you slap the person you love. Love makes you cheat, lie, and become a criminal - and all is forgiven, because it is in the name of Love.

Vanga's first film Arjun Reddy / Kabir Singh was a shocking primer into the mind of Vanga. Animal is like a handbook on Vanga's personal quirks. He wants you boys to know that it's okay to not shave your pubes, that it's okay to marry a woman for her "big (childbirth-ready) pelvis", and that it's okay to manhandle her and hurt her as long as you are one applying Zandu Balm on her afterwards.

Not despite its contrarian nature but because of it, Animal is an arresting piece of cinema. Even as you scratch your head when Geetanjali and Ranveer get into a fight that climaxes with a gunshot, and then anti-climaxes with a kiss, you cannot peel your eyes away from it. Vanga is wholly committed, and scarily sure of his opinions. And you watch things unfold with the same perverse curiosity and glee that one watches videos of people falling on their butts. The question is how ridiculous can things get? The answer is always "more".

Animal is made credible by its excellent technicals. Praak's "Agar Tujhe Ho Gaya Kuch Sari Duniya Jala Denge" is by far the most winsome element of the film. Amit Roy's cinematography is a masterclass in framing and track shots. When Ranveer sets off on his killing rampage, the dynamism in the shots is half the work done, and the score gets us 90% of the way there, making an audiovisual party out of a bloodbath. The fights run out of steam at some point, though, especially when several of them are threaded together for a good 15 minutes, without break. A massive machine gun gets wheeled out at some point - a foolhardy call that cheapens the aesthetics of the film. A climactic fist fight between Ranveer and Abrar (Bobby Deol) is however a seductively potent, and brilliantly scored and choreographed moment that becomes a highlight of the movie.

Ranbir Kapoor makes for a sensational psychopath. He is authoritative, nonchalant and just a degree to the right side of being a complete monster. Vanga's strong directorial hand is visible in Rashmika's raw-edged performance as well. She is stripped of her sweet demeanour and plays the part of a woman who has turned angrier and bitter by the moment, to near perfection. My personal favorite performance was that of Bobby Deol, who plays a flamboyant villain, and steals the scenes from Ranbir Kapoor.

Vanga's films can't help but be thinly-veiled PSAs that disseminate his personal takes on love and life. But in Animal, his agenda feels a bit too extreme - like provocation for the sake of provocation. A good half hour gets wasted away on Vanga's "let me tell you how to live your life" scenes that do nothing to move the story along. And the crucial theme of a toxic father-son relationship gets lost in the weeds, and punted down the line for a second part. Animal is a movie you'd either love to hate and be hated on for loving - and in the end, maybe that's just the sort of movie Vanga wants Animal to be.