Review of Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s Animal: If you were offended by Arjun Reddy and Kabir Singh, wait until you see Animal, which stars Ranbir Kapoor.
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Animal, directed by Sandeep Reddy Vanga, is a much-awaited film that stars Ranbir kapoor in a devilish, menacing, and insane avatar. The film’s problematic premise has been discussed since its teaser and trailer were released. What the full film offers is a series of events, emotions, and sequences leading up to a rather underwhelming climax, which is so rushed that you keep wondering if something more is yet to come after the end credits.
Ranbir kapoor Animal takes you on a bloody, noisy, gory, and violent journey, and for the majority of it, you don’t complain. It just immerses you in its gripping tale and scale, but often leaves you in bewilderment each time the hero takes action. Glorified as an anti-hero, Ranvijay Singh (Ranbir Kapoor) idolises and worships his father Balbir Singh’s (Anil Kapoor) and spends most of his childhood seeking his love and attention, but all in vain. Consequently, Daddy’s issues show up fairly early in life and have a discernible effect on him for the better part of his early years.
The primary characters and the idea
In a flashback, the story leaps to high school, where Ranbir Kapoor had taken a gun to his sister’s college in order to get revenge on the people who had raped her. His father sent him to an American boarding school in addition to giving him several spanks on the face out of frustration. When he returned for his father’s 60th birthday, he got into a fight with his brother-in-law, Varun (Siddharth Karnick).
Later on, a romantic angle surfaces, and the rejection of their intercaste union by their families forces him and his girlfriend Geetanjali (Rashmika Mandanna) to emigrate to the US once more.
Ranbir Kapoor aka Ranvijay returns eight years after his father is shot, but this time he is not the same; his hair has grown (thankfully nothing out of the ordinary), he looks even more handsome with a beard, and he is changed into a much more deadly, ruthless, and vicious person. Waging a war to kill Abrar Haque (Bobby Deol), who is after his father’s life, Ranvijay is on a mission that no one can stop him from accomplishing.
If the films Sandeep Reddy Vanga and Animal offended you, wait until you see Animal, which presents Ranbir as the epitome of misogyny and shows no regret for it.
Whether it is berating his Harvard-educated older sister for simply telling her to “keep quiet” in her marriage or advising his younger sister to drink wine instead of whiskey, he is at once adored, despised, and misunderstood. Being the spoilt, entitled brat that he is, Ranvijay feels that, following his father, he should be in charge. As a result, he would enforce the law himself to put things right if the ladies of the house—that is, the sisters—got into any trouble.
That being said, Ranbir is performing at the highest level and really emerges as Sandeep Reddy Vanga Vanga’s Animal; he manages to combine villainy and vulnerability in such a way that you find yourself rooting for him even when he gets shot or punched in the face.
Sandeep aptly places a Kabir doha (bura jo dekhan main chala) in a scene where Ranbir uses a high-tech fancy shooting machine to kill over 300 heavily armed men, making Ranbir’s entry even more heroic. Small details like these uplift animals in quite a few places. Oh, and there is a subtle plug for ‘Made in India’ and Atmanirbhar Bharat too.
One of the longest movies I have seen in a long time, Animal, runs for 3 hours and 22 minutes. It is guaranteed to give you a headache because of the high-pitched speech, which will hurt your ears. There are also parts that you wish were less dramatic, both lyrically and artistically.
The screenplay, co-written by Sandeep, Pranay Reddy Vanga, and Saurabh Gupta, takes care of all the riveting elements and makes sure that every frame offers a cinematically visual treat. However, amid all this logic takes a backseat, and the story is continuously dragged, especially in the second half. For example, the numerous references to a man’s pubic hair as a symbol of manhood are not too pleasant.
One thing that Bollywood has smoothly normalized from DDLJ to Animal is the hero breaking into the girl’s house and enticing her to call off her wedding. In Animal, on the other hand, in a slightly different way, Ranvijay makes Geetanjali fall in love with him by teaching her a lesson on ‘alpha males.’
It is a bit corny, but she is sold in no time, so much so that even if he says, ‘You have got a big pelvis,’ she does not really shut him up. Later, during their eloping in a chartered plane, the two have a passionate kissing session, and when Geetanjali asks how it went, he does not bat an eyelid, explaining that they were having sex against gravity and since the man was on top,
The new chemistry between Ranbir and Rashmika on screen is undeniably hot, but Sandeep soon steps into his element, portraying his hero as a chauvinist and misogynist with such ease that he elevates the idea of a toxic marriage. Whether it is him repeatedly pulling her bra string and leaving her bruised, or him cheating on her and having her come back to kiss and caress him, this is carrying on and magnifying the legacy of Kabir Singh. In one scene, Rashmika gives him a backslap, and some of the audience gasped, “Well deserved.” Perhaps our audiences no longer want to see such men being shown.
This year would be a great opening for both Animal and Sam Bahadur.