The trailer for Bollywood star Ranbir Kapoor’s much awaited gangster-action-thriller film ‘Animal’ is out, and it is a gleefully violent, bloody, as well as an emotional story.
The child of a rich man, Ranbir’s character has a relationship with his father which is carved in blood and shaped by this darkness, he embraces his bloodlust and becomes a psychotic bloodthirsty killer.
Starting off on a weird enough note, the trailer sees the actor with a rather psychotic look in his eyes asking Anil Kapoor to re-enact a memory of his childhood when he had asked him to take him to a Michael Jackson concert.
Somewhat disturbed at the request, Anil nonetheless complies and keeps saying “Papa Papa” until Ranbir yells at him telling him, “I can hear you! I’m not deaf!”
An ode to his strained childhood, the actor plays the role of Arjun Singh who always idolised his father but rarely got anything from him. Though Balbir does love his son, his work as a businessman keeps him occupied. Neglected though still a loving son, as he grows up Arjun has a family of his own with his wife Geetanjali (Rashmika Mandanna).
Visiting his father one day at the hospital when he was shot, Arjun vows to exact vengeance from the one who shot him and embarks on a full on bloodbath. From then on, there is a lot of a gory action which is almost shot in John Wick style, only instead of guns it is axes, and cleavers.
Even choking his own wife when she chides him for his brutality, Arjun becomes more and more psychotic everyday while Balbir is angry at his son for doing anything without consulting him. He replies: “I’ll be doing a hundred things from now papa, can’t really consult you for everything.”
But for all his psychotic and bloodthirsty instincts, there is one character who is even more brutal than him. This marks the introduction of Bobby Deol who crashes a wedding, and wearing a suit is fully covered in the blood of someone who was likely the groom-to-be.
Engaging in a fist fight, both Ranbir and Bobby fight in a private airstrip in a one-sided fight where Bobby is pounding Ranbir brutally. Cutting to the end, it shows a victorious Bobby lying on top of Ranbir with their shirts off, and bloodied lighting a cigarette.
The action and set design is top notch and the violence is off-the-scale as it pulls no punches. The music composed by Pritam, Jaani, Manan Bharadwaj, Vishal Mishra among others with the BGM of Harshwardhan Rameshwar is solid and well suited for a gangster film.
Written-directed by Sandeep Reddy Vanga, the movie fuses elements typical of both South Indian and Bollywood films.
Releasing on December 1, the film stars Ranbir Kapoor, Anil Kapoor, Bobby Deol, Rashmika Mandanna, Triptii Dimri, Shakti Kapoor, Prem Chopra, and Suresh Oberoi, among others.