Animal is an action thriller film edited and directed by Sandeep Reddy Vanga, who has co-written it with Pranay Reddy Vanga and Saurabh Gupta. At 201 minutes it is clearly one of the longest movies to be screened in recent times.
Courtesy Arjun Reddy and Kabir Singh, his earlier films, there is little that one can expect Sandeep Vanga to surprise us with in his third film. The trailer was graphic and hence one knew what to expect. Sandeep can be unapologetic; he has no qualms in parading his characters “toxic” as his detractors would claim them to be. His writing revolves around domineering male centric characters impenitent in their ways, vile in their approach and despotic in their romantic liaisons. With Animal, Sandeep has upped the ante here. This film looked like a progeny from a marriage between Karan Johar’s opulence and Sandeep’s arrogance. In his earlier films there always was a wandering soul that had to be tamed whose purpose was to find a rationale, but here the central character has no cause, save for a singular motive. The father son relationship is largely presumptuous, while the multiple characters have less investment in the bigger scheme of things as they hardly pupate. The bloody, gory action scenes are inordinately lengthy to appreciate. Subtle humour pep up the proceedings, but then the adult conversations look and sound contrived. ANIMAL had a wonderful emotion to exploit; instead it chose to remain reckless and wild.
Ranbir is easily the most intense actor in Hindi cinema today and he does deliver. Rashmika is inconsistent. Anil Kapoor shows he can still perform. Bobby Deol impresses in a very short concave role. The rest are good.
Amit Roy’s cinematography is neat. Harshvardhan Rameshwar’s background score is the highlight of the film and is simply fantastic. Sandeep’s editing is effective. Dialogues are good and direction is fine.
This ANIMAL is naturalized !!
ANIMAL – ANOMALY !!
2.25/5
B.U.Shreesha
