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[/amazon_link]Rating : Intolerable (1/5)
Genre : Drama
Year : 2014
Running time : 2 hours 25 minutes
Director : Shaad Ali
Cast : Ranveer Singh, Parineeti Chopra, Ali Zafar, Govinda
Did I say director Shaad Ali had a good track record? Well, scratch that! With Kill Dil, Shaad Ali wades neck-deep into out-there masala movie making, and we are none the better for it.
The story is as filmi as it gets. Two orphans, Dev (Singh) and Tutu (Zafar) adopted by Bhaiyaji, grow up to work for him as assassins. Until of course, one of them falls in love with a high-end social worker (Parineeti), whatever that is. Voila! Rebellion! Blah-blah-blah!
If you have watched Ali’s earlier films, you know that he has a great love for the OTT, sing-song dramatic tableau, preferably with accompanying naach-gaana. And while this gaana-bajana has its place in commercial Hindi cinema, Ali takes it to ridiculous heights here – the entire first half seemed to consist entirely of these overdone song sequences, with a pitiable amount of dialog. There is precious little story here, and that is bogged down by hammy dialogs and equally atrocious acting. It is like a staged play – we know it and they know it.
I’m assuming that this film did not have a screenplay, because it tottered from here to there without rhyme or reason. One moment there was a dance at a disco, and the next Dev and Tutu were in the thick of a shoot-out. There seemed to be no flow, almost as if the movie was not one whole but a collection of montages featuring the same characters. Yes, there was a gradual progression of events, but the way the film skittered, it felt like it was being made by someone with the attention span of a two-year old.
It is clear from his past ventures that Ali cared two hoots for realism in cinema, but here he gives up every pretense to it. Orphan hit-men Dev and Tutu live in a barsaati with Clint Eastwood-ian influences. Indeed; it boggles the imagination and scars the soul. I am not sure if this “barsaati” had a kitchen or a bathroom, but what it did have was bunk beds and a picture wall with large sized posters of the two in funky poses. Ranveer Singh looks impossibly young without any facial hair, while Zafar probably looks the nicest I’ve seen him yet – he actually might have found his niche as bearded second fiddle.
If that was not enough, plump Parineeti plays that rare creature – a Page 3, disco-going, convertible-driving social worker. But wait, the cup runneth over because Govinda stars as Bhaiyaji. The Original Mountain of Blubber (henceforth referred to as OMOB) plays the eccentric Bhaiyaji with the requisite number of pelvic thrusts – a role truly tailor-made for him.
Shaad Ali might have meant this to be some kind of poetic, Western-inspired love story – it did have Gulzar’s voice reciting some couplets in the background. In the foreground though, we had Parineeti (in a skin-tight gown) and Ranveer going at it, lip-first. So much for poetry! The romance itself was pretty thanda. Dev and Disha were in love, but I couldn’t see why. I didn’t care for it or for either of them.
This film for all it’s out-there jokes and one-liners was lacking in charisma. Ranveer Singh has appeared in one bromance too many, and his youthful, I-can-do-anything antics are getting repetitive and tiresome. Kill Dil might have been a spoof, but it was an incongruous, discordant spoof, plumped up with frivolous filmi fat. Slimmer – a lot slimmer, and with a glimmer of a story this might have worked.
Kidwise : Lots of gun violence. Women in slinky, low-cut clothes. Lovemaking. Some raunchy jokes.
