Clocking in at over 200 minutes, Animal is a film defined by excess. A multi-generational crime drama, it topped the global box office on its opening weekend. It is the highest-grossing opening of star Ranbir Kapoor’s career. Bigger, longer, bloodier: Animal is all that and more.
Kapoor plays Vijay Bilbar Singh, son of one of the wealthiest men in India. Bilbar Singh (played by Anil Kapoor) is a stern, unyielding, often-absent business magnate who has treated his wayward son with anger and disdain. Vijay fully earns that criticism. Arrogant, ill-mannered, impulsive, privileged, he’s the type of student who brings a machine gun to class when his sister is insulted.
Vijay falls for Gitanjali (an affecting performance by the lovely Rashmika Mandanna), from a lower-class family, and takes her to London to escape his father’s wrath. His sisters Reet (Saloni Batra) and Roop (Anshul Chauhan) remain close to home; in fact, Reet’s husband Varun (Siddhant Karnick) becomes a kind of surrogate son to Singh.
Everything changes when assassins attack Singh on a golf course. Vijay returns home to take over the company while his father recovers. He roots out traitors within the organization, including its security force. Vijay hires new bodyguards from the family’s home village, then a body double to portray his father in public.
It turns out another family has a grudge against Singh for apparently icing them out of its share of his fortune. The brothers behind the attacks include Asrar, Abrar, and Abid; Aziz, a fourth brother, will figure into the closing credits. Vijay and his men hole up in a luxury hotel, where they are attacked by scores of Asrar’s men.
That’s just the first half. The rest of the film includes a coma, a heart transplant, Vijay’s affair with and betrayal by Zoya (a very appealing Tripti Dimri), the mute Abrar’s marriage and subsequent wedding-night foursome with his previous two wives, and several attempted reconciliations between Vijay and his father.
Not that the plot matters. Animal is a star vehicle for Ranbir Kapoor, and he makes the most of his role. He’s a lover, an intellectual, a neglected son, but most of all an animal with no control over his feelings. It’s a part with a lot of physicality, a lot of hair changes, and a lot of weird digressions.
Vijay’s rants are the most unpredictable element of Animal, which is otherwise overheated versions of familiar gangster scenes. Vijay talks at length about underwear, and in fact forces an arms dealer to give up his pair. He talks about standards of beauty, a “self-reliant India,” food, cars, anything. He can be funny and surreal at times, but frequently overbearing.
Kapoor goes full-out in his performance. Take a scene where he addresses workers at his father’s steel foundry. It’s a rousing exhortation to work together for the common good — for “victory” — until he starts to go off the rails by promising to strangle his enemies. It’s a brilliant moment in a troubling scene, especially since he’s wearing a uniform embroidered with a swastika. He later raises his arm in a familiar salute.
Vijay actually tries to justify the swastika later in the movie (it’s not “slanted” so it can’t be Nazi). By that time he’s also predicted, “Someone will surely die for me and I will get a transplant.”
Director Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s action scenes are gigantic and chaotic but not especially well choreographed. The attack on Vijay’s hotel is the most complicated set piece in the film. After fighting off hatchet-wielding goons under three lighting schemes, Vijay is told that 200 more fighters are approaching. He mounts a sort of monster machine gun on a golf cart and shoots everyone into submission. It’s a fun but completely unbelievable scene that left me exhausted more than satisfied.
Insane on so many levels, Animal is also noteworthy for the bloodiest closing credits I have ever seen.
Credits: Director: Sandeep Reddy Vanga. Producers: Bhushan Kumar, Pranay Reddy Vanga, Murad Khetani, Krishan Kumar. Writer: Sandeep Reddy Vanga. Director of Photography: Amit Roy. Editor: Sandeep Reddy Vanga. Production Designer: Suresh Selvarajan. Costume Designer: Sheetal Iqbal Sharma.Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Anil Kapoor, Bobby Deol, Rashmika Mandanna. Language: Distributors: Moksha Movies and Nirvana Cinemas. Hindi and Telugu with English subtitles.
