SHARES
Time and again, YRF has tried to change itself, and has dabbled in quite some genres, away from the typical romance/drama fare that it presents. With Aditya Chopra at the helm, YRF has come up with several out-of-genre movies, including the Dhoom series, Mardaani, Tashan and now Kill/Dil.In fact, they so wanted to have a new image that they went ahead and started a new production house, aimed at younger, frothier movies, but that will be discussed some other day.
Kill/Dil is an important movie for everyone in the movie. Ali Zafar still needs to have a breakthrough role in mainstream Bollywood, Parineeti Chopra is keen on making her presence felt and becoming something else than ‘just another star sister’ – like how Alia Bhatt did with Highway, and Ranveer Kapoor is well, he’s Ranveer Kapoor. Kill/Dil is also an important movie for Govinda and YRF. The former is trying to make a comeback, and the latter is finding the ‘Big Banner’ space in Bollywood cluttered.
Does Kill/Dil create something that will make all these people relevant once again and breathe fresh air into careers? Read our review to find out.
Kill/Dil Story:
Dev and Tutoo (Ranveer and Ali Zafar) are orphans adopted by a gangster Bhaiyaji (Govinda), and they continue doing his bad business. Just as they are getting into the big picture, Dev meets Disha (Parineeti Chopra) and falls for her, hook, line and sinker. Dev decides to leave a world of crime, which is of course opposed by both Tutoo and Bhaiyaji. However, Tutoo caves in to his friend’s love and they both decide to keep Bhaiyaji in the dark abut Dev’s love life. Of course, nothing could be so hunky dory and therefore Bhaiyaji finds out that Dev has been leading a straightedge life. What happens next forms the rest of the movie.
Screenplay/Story Review:
Kill/Dil starts out as a promising epic but fails pathetically by the end the characters ride into the sunset. The movie starts out as a multilayered story comprising of gangsters, orphans, the new, young, professionals and how they co-exist in Delhi, but has one of the tamest ends in the history of Indian cinema.
There has to be some inner meaning/symbolism about Govinda acting as if Dev and Tutoo are the only shooters in the whole of Delhi, or how there is no woman in Bhaiyaji’s whole house – bar one housemaid that is seen in the very beginning of the movie, or even the chess playing sequences on the terrace of a misty Delhi, maybe something deep in the gimp hanger on that does nothing, other than hang around. Maybe some more informed, knowledgable and intelligent reviewer would be able to get into the symbolism part of Kill/Dil, but this Dress Circle reviewer left unimpressed.
The main issue in Kill/Dil is the fact that the characters are not etched out properly, and therefore their actions are not justified, thereby giving rise to a confused audience, The nudge-nudge-wink-wink relationship between Zafar/Singh/Govinda has the essence of homoerotica, but is nowhere as strong as would be needed to make it a dark and memorable movie. Parineeti Chopra has the least screentime, and suffers from the inherent Bollywood Profession Sickness. She is given an ultra interesting profession, but nothing is ever made out of it.
What really disappoints is the climax, which is inane and thoroughly uninspired. One wonders why someone who has just avoided an assassination would kill the person who ordered the assassination and leave the actual assassins to drive into the sunset.
The saddest part of the debacle is that Kill/Dil will be tagged as an ‘Action/Romance’ when it finally hits the DVD scene. Remember people, there is not a single true-to-earth action scene in the movie. The only action one sees in Kill/Dil is a shootout, where two bullets are fired, and one shootout where one of the characters is shot in the back.
Performances Review:
Ranveer Singh is miscast as the loveryboy caught in the world of crime, and Ali Zafar is miscast as the cynic who sees a ray of light when his bro falls in love. Singh also suffers from a makeup troupe that has timetravelled from the nineties. He is actually sporting a ‘beech ki maang’ look – the only thing missing is a Rishi Kapoor like sweaterand we are back into Bol Radha Bol territory.
Parineeti Chopra has no acting to do in the movie, except for one scene, where she breaks down. One wonders whether she broke down because the scene demanded it, or because she understood the complete meaninglessness of signing up to play a female lead for a YRF movie in 2014.
The man to look out though, is Govinda, who makes a crackling comeback as an out and out villainous character. His acting is so refreshingly old school, that you wonder what this guy would do if you put him in a stage drama. This is one of the first times in Bollywood that a male has used dance as a form of expression to express the pathos that he is going through. Come to think of it, even Hrithik Roshan has not done that till now.
Final Verdict:
In the end, it is YRF that fails Kill/Dil. In a movie that is otherwise beautifully shot and picturised, the two green-screen scenes of Parineeti Chopra and Ranveer riding a Bullet and the two lovebirds atop the Qutub Minar are simply an insult to the audience. Shraddha Kapoor rode an honest to God Bullet for Ek Villain, so why couldn’t Parineeti?
With Kill/Dil, YRF seems to be like a cricket team captain who has a favorite strategy, that doesn’t give him the required returns, and therefore he tries to tweak it a bit and use it everytime. In the span of two years, YRF has produced three movies revolving around the concept of two badmen, hardcore criminals, and a woman. And guess what, the public paid for it all three times.
Skip the theater ride, and wait for this one to run on some television channel within the month.
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