‘Ek Villain’ is a shrink’s delight. How else would one explain the ultra-amazing telepathic connection that everybody has with everybody else in the movie!
Like the CBI officer who makes a prompt entry every time Guru (Sidharth Malhotra) is up to something. Oh, probably because he’s a CBI official! So let’s surmise that this is the only case that interests him, and that there is no traffic block in the city ever to interrupt his popping up as if on cue at the venue. Or Guru, for that matter who reaches the railway station promptly when Ayesha (Shraddhha Kapoor) is secretly getting away from him. How do you do that? Did she book her tickets 'secretly' from your mobile phone?! And by the way, running behind the train is an art that has a whole preamble-body-conclusion and sequential relevance to it, perfected by DDLJ in Bollywood. It doesn’t just work with no nerve and no imagination to it! And yes, we knew it, but how did Guru know that Riteish Deshmukh would get ticked off by the nurse and pull a scream-act in hospital style on her?
This movie is all abound with a ‘that 70s Bollywood show’ styled punctuations of ‘Ye mardangi hai’ and ‘Tujhe main mauth dikhaoonga’ studded with rippling muscles, menacing grunts through gnashed teeth and ruptured cavities all the way to eye-popping coincidences. And a misplaced villainy where the ‘villain’ talks like a retail seller when he says ‘I killed the mother, and the baby came free with it’!
So, Ayesha is fairy godmother’s own child, the girl who keeps coming up with the ‘I’ll tell you a joke’ scenario to strangers in a bid to help, and then in a ‘Need for speed’ mode finishes off the joke even before it starts to register. Guru falls into her lap, as the stranger she wants to help, and who very soon falls in love as well. FYI, he is a thug. Of course, why else would he need help! So, bad guy turns good boy for the girl. And then the villain makes an appearance. Here’s where you’re left baffled looking at an oddly inspired Dexter-Psycho-Scream (Mohit Suri, we need you to take a call on that one) Villain.
And we have a high functioning psychopath, masochist Rakesh Misogynist, sorry, Mahadhkar (Riteish Deshmukh), who is into rampant killing of women because his wife irritates him! (Of all the reasons to kill) If there was romance in it, a gory dark one at that, it didn't come through convincingly at all. Aamna Sharif who plays his wife nags, cries and throws tantrums to good effect. But since the story paces with its ludicrous twists, there is no looking beyond. An extremely unpleasant Kamaal R Khan makes you wonder why the psychopath didn't axe him instead of all the women.
Riteish Deshmukh landed the juiciest part, but it was so underripe that there was no taking it in. He carries his black hooded gown with him all the time, like it's his security blanket, and the moment a girl so much as squints at him, that's it, she's done in! Sidharth Malhotra grunts. That's pretty much all. In a scene, where he walked a stretch beating up thugs with a dead-pan expression, my thoughts wandered to Grand Theft Auto and the likes. That sums it up.
Execution of a drama, especially a thriller, even if it's an adaptation/remake needs detailing. Maybe Mohit Suri could take a leaf out the books of his Indian counterparts who did 'Kaun', 'Ek Haseena Thi', Johny Gaddar and the likes. 'Ek Villain' drags, and after all the blood, guts and gore, you realize that the villain is none other than the flaky, uninspiring story. So long, Villain. Actually go long, and stay far.
Rating 2/5