Nitin Sharma | Questioning Everything

Animal

I want to talk about Animal, starring Ranbir Kapoor. I’ve never been a big fan of his acting before this film, but I was genuinely impressed here. That said, there are things I don’t like too, particularly the way he treats his wife in parts of the film. That was demeaning, and I don’t endorse it at all.

But if you think of a movie as a craft, I loved the music, and even more, the way the action scenes were filmed. There’s a fight between Bobby Deol’s character and Ranbir Kapoor on what’s essentially a runway, a plane sequence, and the way it was shot with the background score was incredible. Bare-knuckle fights on screen usually get repetitive fast; I don’t think most can hold your attention for more than twenty or thirty seconds. But this one runs for close to three and a half, four minutes, and it works because the fight and the music are so tightly woven together.

Then there’s the Arjan Vailly sequence, the mass fight scene set to that song, where he’s up against what feels like a hundred people. From what I’ve read since, that corridor fight was inspired by Oldboy, the Korean film, and honestly you can see it. It gave the scene a real flavour.

As for the story, there’s a scene where he talks with his father and essentially says, let’s swap roles, and he becomes the father figure. That was brilliant, one of the moments that really kept me hooked.

I know there are valid criticisms about how the film treats women, and some of it is genuinely glamorised in a way it shouldn’t be. But I’d also call that creative liberty to some degree. Logically, there are hundreds of films far worse than this: worse treatment of women, no story, no good music, no memorable scenes. So relatively speaking, Animal holds up a lot better than plenty of films that get away with far less scrutiny. It’s not an art film, and it was never trying to be one. I’m just someone who says what he actually thinks rather than performing an opinion for approval. Full marks to Animal, as far as I’m concerned.

Dhurandhar

Next, Dhurandhar, specifically the second part. The first one didn’t impress me much, largely because of how much hype surrounded it, and it didn’t really give you closure. It felt like it missed the mark for that reason. But the second part was excellent, because it closed the loop properly.

Again, the biggest thing for me was the music, particularly the background score across the different scenes. Some of it is very violent, very bloody, but they tone it down beautifully with the music, and that balance is what makes it work so well.

The one thing I don’t like is how a lot of people have read it politically, as though it’s justifying certain government actions like the note ban and so on. I think people just want confirmation of what they already believe; they pick and choose what they want to see. I honestly don’t care about that angle at all. As a piece of filmmaking, the craft was excellent. There’s a scene where he meets his brother-in-law in Pakistan that genuinely had me thinking, wow, where is this going next. Ranveer Singh’s acting was outstanding too, especially the way his expressions shifted through the film, and the way the music was used throughout is hard to even put into words.

To be clear, I’m not a BJP supporter, and my issue isn’t that the film supposedly justifies their actions through a narrative twist; that was honestly the last thing on my mind until other people started talking about it. What impressed me was how well it was made, how good the action was, and how well everyone acted. I went to watch it twice in the cinema, and that says enough on its own.

[Photos coming soon]