Kill/Dil (2014)

I thought there was no way I wouldn’t like this movie, seeing as how the cast list is basically a summary of my very most favorite Bollywood actors. So when the bad reviews came in, I was all “whatever, those people probably didn’t like Jhoom Barabar Jhoom either, so what do they know.” Then they were all “no, seriously, it doesn’t make any sense and Ranveer is awful” and I was all “LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU” and ordered the dvd anyway.

But yeah. It might have suffered from some unreasonably high expectations on my part, but I really didn’t enjoy it as much as I had hoped. The movie opens with Dev (Ranveer Singh) narrating his story to a video camera, because if there’s anything Yash Raj does better than tired references to more successful films, it’s having their characters explain themselves directly at the camera instead of showing us what happened. So we learn that Dev and Tutu (Ali Zafar) were rescued from the streets and raised by Bhaiyyaji (Govinda) who basically turns them into a cold-blooded killing team. They’ve known nothing else, so they’re quite charming about the whole thing, with big guns, big smiles, and endearing bromance.

And also shirtless Ali Zafar, because I am not exactly a high-brow sort of movie viewer.

So they’re happy with their life, assassinating the people Bhaiyyaji assigns them, until they meet Disha (Parineeti Chopra). She’s rich, sophisticated and her vocation is rehabilitating criminals, but Dev falls madly in love anyway because she’s super cute.

Tutu, however, is unimpressed.

Affection blooms, despite some communication mishaps,

But all this cuteness starts interfering with his day job, angering Bhaiyyaji, and turning the story into a simple one of a criminal trying to reform and escape his troubled past for the sake of love. Not very exciting love, either. There just isn’t a lot of chemistry there. Dev buries his gun and finds a job based on false credentials obtained by threatening some file clerks, (He is a criminal, after all) while Tutu keeps up appearances with Bhaiyyaji, pretending Dev is still working with him. He doesn’t really understand why Dev won’t be a killer anymore, but covers for him anyway. Naturally this all falls apart in a predictable sort of way, then is similarly resolved.

Despite it being the premise of the movie, we don’t get any real force behind Dev’s change of heart. It’s not that he starts caring about people besides Tutu, or realizing that the men he kills have families and people who love them. It’s just “I don’t want to be bad so Disha will still like me.” Ranveer starts off as a very enjoyable merciless assassin, and then he just goes completely, pathologically, flat. I know he thinks that being respectable is boring, but please don’t bore us about it. Also, his hair is really bad. I had a bowl cut like that when I was 10, but that was because my dad cut my hair. An internationally famous movie star does not have that excuse.

Ali is wonderful and very underused as always. I can never figure out why that is. Well, I mean, I do know why he doesn’t get more starring roles, it’s because they end up like London, Paris, New York or Total Siyyapa. Still, it’s a waste.

I have never said that I was not an extremely shallow person.

Govinda has the best crazy evil laugh, and I just loved him as a villain, but the way his character arc was resolved has got to be the least satisfying thing on my dvd shelf.* Come on, people! Bhaiyyaji is an awesome character! Let’s have some more actual confrontation instead of working it out through bland intermediaries!
*I exaggerate. There is Mausam up there too.

Of course it's over-the-top. That's why I watch these things.

For all my bitching and moaning, it’s worth watching if you like watching Ranveer and Ali strut around and have dosti on motorcycles. It just had so much potential and sitting through this movie was like grasping at grains of promise only to see them slip out of my hands like falling sand. It’s enough to make you make write ridiculous metaphors all over your blog posts.

Okay, Govinda looks weird, but this shot is awesome.