ANIMAL (2023) – A MOVIE SO “EDGY”, IT MIGHT MAKE YOU JUMP OFF A CLIFF’S EDGE

Animal is a Bollywood Hindi language, action thriller directed and edited by Sandeep Reddy Vanga, a director known for “Kabir Singh”, a movie with a disgusting male protagonist although not reaching the levels of Ranvijay “Vijay” Singh, portrayed by Ranbir Kapoor in Animal. With a runtime of 201 minutes, Animal is one of the longest Indian films ever made and the movie ensures each cell and fiber in your body suffers each minute of those 201 minutes. A little over halfway through the movie, the main character and his Sikh brothers (who don’t seem to have much to do) attend church – why the church instead of Gurudwara or a Temple, no one knows. He has just killed 300 people (single-handedly which begs the question why even need the support?), and they think he’d benefit from a spiritual cleanse, which he refuses. This movie ensures you will need one too, if you are a fully functional human member of society.

So the plot I don’t want to discuss as that will make watching this meaningless movie, even more difficult than it is. The movie is a mind-boggling cinematic experience with misogyny, bad dialogues and unnecessary violence thrown into a movie supposedly about a broken father-son relationship. Vijay’s relationship with his father Balbir Singh, one of India’s richest industrialists as the movie proclaims, is flawed from the beginning. The child Vijay has a weird infatuation with his “Papa” – your dad can be your hero and you can love him very much but who distributes sweets to their classmates in school for your dad’s birthday? Anyways, apparently this sets the tone for the whole movie, where Vijay does everything for his dad including visiting the barber, to make his papa happy.

Anyways, Vijay seduces Geetanjali, a sister of a friend and his childhood sweetheart, on her engagement day by giving her some weird Alpha speech and appearing extremely Beta in the process. Real men pursue their desires with passion but they do not behave obsessively or need to justify their Alpha status. It is evident to all but Vijay apparently does. Anyways, he gets the girl because he tells her she will breed strong kids since she has wide hips and Vanga Reddy believes that is the ultimate pick up line. During his dad’s birthday party, he and his papa argue and he is banished. He leaves India with his wife for the United States, making a couple of kids in the process through sex romps on a private aircraft that apparently finds empty airfields across the world and mountains to barely avoid crashing into.

Anyways, soon Balbir is attacked on a golf course and is in the hospital. Vijay returns with a desire for vengeance and unleashes a one-man crusade to find his papa’s assassins. How he has the fighting skills and gunmanship of a Marvel superhero, is left blank as our minds listening to the dialogues. Vijay reconciles with his family and takes it upon himself to uncover the assassin’s identity. He rounds up his cousins from the village for backup, a group of Sikhs who are shown to be down to earth and married men in one scene and soliciting Eastern European prostitutes in the next. Vijay recruits a body double for his father who is eventually killed by the assassin named Asrar Haque. Vijay discovers his sister’s husband Varun’s role in the assassination attempt and kills him publicly at a conference where Asrar is also present. Police are absent throughout the movie despite the brutal killings of almost 500 people during the course of the movie. Asrar and his mask-wearing assailants launch a hefty attack on Vijay and his cousins at a hotel, with one scene involving axe-wielding killers in masks, copied from a scene from the movie “Snowpiercer”. Vijay takes them all down (around 300 assassins!) while his cousins sing a song stupidly to show his prowess and kills Asrar but he is severely wounded and goes into a coma. He wakes up after two weeks and undergoes a heart transplant for his failing heart.

Vijay recuperates after several months and uninteresting dialogues are available in abundance including a discussion about jock itch and underwear. Eventually as he roams around naked in his garden (as we all do), he is approached by Zoya (portrayed by Tripti Dimri), the fiancée of his heart donor. He starts an affair with Zoya who eventually reveals that she was sent by Asrar’s brother Abrar Haque (played by Bobby Deol) to honey trap him. However, Vijay had already known this and played along to learn the mastermind’s identity and probably get laid with another hottie. He leaves Zoya and learns from his grandfather Rajdheer Singh that Abrar and his brothers are Vijay’s second cousins. They are the grandchildren of Shamsher Singh, Rajdheer’s younger brother. Rajdheer had renounced Shamsher for his immoral antics. Shamsher’s son Azim, who had converted to Islam, was denied any share in Balbir’s assets, which prompted Shamsher to commit suicide. Abrar, who had witnessed his grandfather’s suicide, became mute from the trauma. Abrar has relocated to Scotland and has been the one plotting against Balbir to seek vengeance for his family.

Next we are introduced to Abrar Haque, a mute but equally vile character, with a fun musical number “Jamal Kudu“, an old Iranian song which is the only thing interesting about his appearance. He is shown dancing with a glass of whisky on his head, smoking cigarettes and about to marry his 3rd wife, enjoying the full benefits of “progressive” Islam. The best thing about Bobby Deol’s character is that he is mute so we don’t have to listen to his “Alpha” garbage as he slaps around his wives and murders those who give him bad news in front of his new bride and then forcibly makes out with her, smeared in blood.

Vijay and his cousins stop Abrar as he is about to escape the country in a private jet with his third brother Abid, who basically translates anything and everything Abrar says. A violent duel ensues on the runway, in the most mind-numbing punch-ups in the history of movies, where initially Abrar having beaten up Vijay, wastes time lying on his back and smoking a cigarette but then giving the upper hand to Vijay, ultimately ending in Vijay killing Abrar with an unnecessarily visual throat cutting, reminiscent of Vijay’s possible employment with ISIS or Hamas, during his time away from home.

Back home during Diwali, Balbir reveals that he has stage 4 acute lymphoblastic leukemia with only a few months left to live. He realizes that his lack of love for his son has always been the root cause of Vijay’s aggression. Vijay’s wife abandoning him and leaving for the United States, is treated as a minor event as the son focuses on the papa. Balbir finally apologizes and the two reconcile – an event that could have resulted in a much shorter movie. Oh but just when you think it is over, in a post-credit scene, we are introduced to Aziz Haque, a butcher in Istanbul and the youngest of the Haque brothers, who has undergone plastic surgery to resemble Vijay (Ranbir Kapoor yet again!). Zoya is with him and revealed to be pregnant, though unsure whether the child’s father is Aziz or Vijay. Aziz sets out with Abid to exact retaliation for the deaths of their two elder brothers as he butchers two of Vijay’s Sikh brothers in a bathroom and then tells Abrar’s youngest wife, that he will marry her. Apparently we will see more of this one in the sequel to this one – “Animal Park”.

JAY’S VERDICT

Animal is a movie which has become a super hit but anyone with half a brain, should avoid this meaningless movie unless you’re buying a ticket into coma.