Animal Movie Review: Ranbir Kapoor's Intense Performance Rises Above This Complex Family Saga Ft. Anil Kapoor, Bobby Deol

One of the most eagerly anticipated films of the year is Sandeep Reddy Vanga's Animal with Ranbir Kapoor in the lead role. The actor plays Ranvijay Singh, a man who has vied for his father Balbir Singh's (Anil Kapoor) attention all his life. Ranbir's character goes from a young to an elderly man, who looks up to his workaholic parent no matter what. The complex father and son relationship takes on an obsessive quality from Ranvijay’s end as he vows to be his father's protector.

Animal: Narrative

Besides the fractured parent-child relationship, Animal is also about Ranvijay's need for connection with others. His relationship with his friend Karthik’s sister Gitanjali (Rashmika Mandanna) also becomes possessive as he re-enters her life and expects her to choose him. The Hindi film mostly revolves around the internal clan politics with regards to the family business and other distant relatives. These 'family matters' get heightened as Ranvijay has strong views on everything and how it should be handled.

Vanga's film does not shy away from violence. He revels in it. Several sequences feature Ranbir's character out for a thirst for revenge after a life-threatening attack on his father. Assembling an inner team of trusted bodyguards who are family members, Rannvijay will go to any length to protect Balbir.

The pre-interval action sequence, set to the song Arjan Vailly, feels more appropriate on a battlefield rather than in the interior of a hotel. The nearly 20-minute fight piece is stylised and extremely violent and Ranbir’s Rannvijay emerges from it as a man-possessed, fighting nearly 300 henchmen.

Animal: Writing and Direction

In an old interview, filmmaker Sandeep Reddy Vanga had shared that he would show audiences how violent he could get in his next film. And Animal does deliver! The feature is frustratingly focused on Ranvijay's obsessive need to track down who wanted to harm his father that sometimes it doesn't allow other characters the chance to exist.

After the hyper-violent and pulsating first half, the second half feels a tad bit subdued. Hereafter, the characters are more about confrontations and big revelations. But don't worry, there's always room for more blood to be shed as a new antagonist emerges.

Vanga, who is also the writer and editor of the film, which clocks in at three hours and 21 minutes. He doesn't waste a second of the running time, packing in story details all the way to the last frame of the film. Don't make the mistake of walking out when the end credits start rolling, it's important to stay until the very end.

Animal, which has been co-written by Vanga, his older brother Pranay Reddy Vanga and Suresh Bandaru, also seems to address critics' of the director's previous work, when Ranvijay and Gitanjali angrily discuss slapping one another. The characterizations are also reminiscent of the director's worldview, that the women in the film, despite being 'strong', still have to be managed.

Animal: Performances

Played a character with strong daddy issues yet again, the actor is a force to reckon with in Animal, and at times, he is practically vibrating with emotion in scenes in which he rallies to protect his family. The film entirely rests upon his electric and intense performance. Anil Kapoor also delivers a powerful performance as the patriarch Balbir, who at times, seems scared of his own son.

Rashmika Mandanna as Geetanjali is the predominant female character in the film, but she often seems to succumb to Ranvijay's powers of persuasion. The actress's dialogue delivery is a bit muffled and there are times when it's hard to decipher what she says. Bobby Deol's Abrar Haque has an imposing presence but I wish he was given more to do.

Upendra Limaye and the actors who play part of Ranvijay's inner circle of bodyguards are crowd pleasers, while Tripti Dimri, Suresh Oberoi, Saurabh Sachdeva, Shakti Kapoor, Prem Chopra all have minor but key parts in the film.

Animal Review: Critique

In the first half, the story structure jumps around a bit in time periods, become confusing. But the second half is where the drama is. The background score by Harshwardhan Rameshwar is also complementary as it boosts up the action as the characters gear up to fight to the death. The songs by the various composers including JAM8, Vishal Mishra, Jaani, Manan Bhardwaj and Shreyas Puranik fit the various arcs of the screenplay.

Sandeep Reddy Vanga's Animal can be called a lot many things, but it is not boring. The onscreen brutality gets a bit much as it gets utilized more to shock than for any narrative structure. The director's tale of complicated family relationships and revenge is only just beginning as its ending seems to suggest.