Negative attracts. Villains get most of the claps. Well, mostly. So in
case, if you make it to resist yourself from falling over your current
heartthrobs on screen; Shraddha Kapoor riding high on AASHIQUI 2’s success and
the cute-faced, no-nonsense and impressively the most sincere looking student
of Kjo’s school Sidharth Malhotra respectively for boys & girls; you have
also on board one of the most deliciously mystified villain played by Riteish
Deshmukh. A perfect casting, quite enticing in this case is a fool-proof
strategy to bring big numbers in theatres and at the box-office both. Half
battle is won.
Now, let’s have some crisp, meaty, tense, on the edge plot that could have
the audience seated for longer than interval at least. Plot? Really? Aren’t we
asking for much, especially in Bollywood? But why to worry if there are plenty
of inspirations floating all over the cinema-world! And the team chooses South
Korean revenge thriller I SAW THE DEVIL. With added melodic music that includes an item
number too, anyone would have predicted ages before going on the floor that the
film will be a success in all respects. It looks. It sounds. It appears but sadly
and only on paper. It’s time to face some reality. Mohit Suri’s EK VILLAIN is a
mishmash of a love-story that tries hard to be intense and an unintentional revenge
drama that thrills only at one occasion or two.
Ethically, there is not much to unravel in the plot as it being a
suspense thriller, though you can easily predict it from a mile away. So, let’s
stick to the characters and not the major events. Shraddha Kapoor plays Ayesha-
a girl in high spirits with her bucket-list of dreamy wishes like watching
peacocks dancing in the ‘first’ rain of the season, catching a butterfly and
you can go on & on with a wide-eyed expression of ‘How romantic!’ on your
face. She also loves to talk in a manner tried & tested well before by all
prominent Bollywood heroines from Hema Malini in ‘SHOLAY’ to Asin in ‘GHAZNI’.
She comes last in the list of ‘who performed well’.
In execution of one of these silliest wishes, she seeks help of a
cold-blooded murderous henchman Guru, played by yours truly Sidharth wearing a
grumpy look on face from the acting rulebook. What happens next? Any guesses? No,
he doesn’t kill the girl. No, the girl doesn’t kill him for what he’s done but
they both fall in love. I bet you haven’t had it in your weirdest dream. Enters
Riteish playing Rakesh, a simple-sober-soft spoken regular guy who doesn’t want
much in life but to be a hero for his son and wife! With a nagging, beating
& harassing wife [played by Aamna Sharif], it is quite an impossible task. So,
the constantly piling anger, frustration and rage arouse the violent streak in the
guy. How the three cross each other’s path is better left unspoken.
At best, EK VILLAIN is a melodramatic average Bollywood thriller with predictably
ridiculous storyline that barely imposes any sense of emotional connect to any
of the characters. They are loud screaming hard to make themselves noticed. The
twists and turns are some relief in order to infuse some excitement. In one of
scenes, Kamaal Rashid Khan of ‘DESHDROHI’ is seen justifying domestic violence
on women as a part of common middle-class men’s stress-release process. If a
writer could come up with such character on screen that too without giving him
a proper lesson at the end, I mourn the death of sensibility in such creative
area of work. Even my anger is piling up for obvious reasons! Let’s end it here
and here! [2/5]
