Cast: Govinda, Ranveer Singh, Ali Zafar, Parineeti Chopra, Kader Khan
Rating: **
Kill Dil isn’t a film that can necessarily branded into an arena in terms of specifics. It’s more or so the territory that being ‘Bollywoody’, rather than the story that remains a priority. Shaad Ali, in a market-friendly style, stamped the Yashraj’s spoilt brat way, marginally better than his Jhoom Barabar Jhoom days, slips into the obvious, like one of the male lead’s earlier films Gunday, where everything’s garbled together on the frame as a namesake necessity. The ‘body beautiful’ is a marketing strategy to pull it’s act together. Being simpler, Kill Dil is about fillers, coming up sequence after sequence, seeming like a tasteless, uncooked meal garnished to the hilt.
There’s a hint of initial meta-referencing, when Ranvir Singh introduces us to Shaad Ali’s Bunty Aur Bubli, keeping the radio close to the ears, prior to a song. His ringtone is another indication of the maker’s earlier movie.
The songs, coming in at the most potent instances of a rather spineless work, are designed and executed with more sincerity than the plot. This is overdone to an extent that the half a dozen songs put together don’t have the sugary treatment that the film is needlessly stuffed with. For instance, the door of Parineeti’s house where Ranvir attends a function is closed, while the next frame has Govinda breaking the door of the house where the partners in crime reside. These are only the occasional sparkles that warm us in an offering where everything appears conveniently pre-decided.
Ranvir Singh, the film’s savior and undoing on an equal measure, repeats his ‘tapori’ with a heart image. He is expectedly genuine in exhibiting the naughtier dimension of his part, but carries the déjà vu of Ram Leela and Gunday along. The only character that strikes a chord in an otherwise soulless, mechanically ‘processed’ narrative happens to be him, but Kill Dil shouldn’t have been the film. He could’ve got along with this, had it been a Besharam or a R Rajkumar, that’s just about drawing the supposed whistles for flirting with his lady love.
This, we’re told is an action film that has its leading man endlessly weeping for a change of mind. The clear-cut transition happens so very late, that a yawn too seems forced enough. A fictional moment of the Qutub Minar top where Parineeti demands a ‘vaada’ is also left criminally wasted. Govinda, as a baddie never gets that ‘big’ masala moment to show how dangerous can he be. He is forced to be man of mere words than actions. The resources are all there, just in the wrong film. May be, Gunday 2 as a title would’ve worked?
Review by Srivathsan N
