Ek Villain Returns: An evacuated diaspora of disaffection
Ek Villain Returns: An evacuated diaspora of disaffection
Director Mohit Suri is not devoid of talent. The creative juices continue to flow in Ek Villain Returns, the ‘spiritual sequel’ to Ek Villain in 2014, though not quite in the way we expected. Suri still tells a solidly involving story. But somewhere there is a note of desperation in the way the killings pan out and in the way the characters are flung in our faces to confuse us with more murder suspects than is healthy for the screenplay.
As in the other release this week Vikrant Rona there is a serial killer on the prowl in Ek Villain Returns. This one kills women, women who have two-timed their boyfriends. It is most presumptuous of the killer (and I am most certainly not telling you who it is) that it (the killer) can take it upon itself to cleanse the world of all the people who cheat in love.
There is an uneasy aura of misogyny in the portrayal of the women in the film as opportunistic gold diggers. And the gruesome script (one of the leads is played by a sledgehammer) condones the serial killer’s killer moves because….well, his heart is in the right place. Just how he picks his victims is laughably random: a girl says goodbye to her boyfriend and starts talking with another man on the phone. The b…tch! How dare she? Ghar mein maa-bahen nahin hai kya!
Hang on! I am not getting too deep into the defective gender politics of this film and Hindi cinema at large. Last year in an atrociously improper film Tadap, Tara Sutaria played the archetypal bad girl, smoking and flirting and scheming and hoodwinking the poor innocent hero while actually going around with other men. Shocking.
Disha Patani in Ek Villain Returns is even more shocking. She derives a sexual pleasure from “male pursuits”( ironic but true that some pursuits are meant for men only) like two-timing, trespassing and mass murder. In brief, she is nothing but grief for the man she loves.
I give Ms Patani full credit for plunging into a blissfully misogynist part with such relish. There is a catch to her evil designs. But by the time we come to it, Patani has extracted the maximum pleasure from the part. Sutaria in comparison comes across as weak, her collection of nail varnish is far more appealing than her abilities as an actor.
In spite of playing a prejudicial character, Disha is one of the mainstays of this mayhem binge where bodies pile up rapidly. Director Mohit Suri seems patently empowered by Korean crime thrillers. Suri has never shied away from gruesome situations. I remember how nastily sanguinary Murder 2 had gotten in his hands.
Ek Villain Returns is more aesthetically mounted. Cinematographer Vikas Sivaraman shoots the horrific violence with an absurd proximity to the violence, so that we have no choice but to participate in the proceedings, not only as spectators but also as potential criminals.
In a recent Malayalam film that I saw Patham Valaavu, a man who murders one of his child’s two rapists and murderers pleads with the cop to let him go and finish his job. It seems like the right thing to do.
John Abraham’s eyes plead the same request. His portrayal of a man who has toppled over the edge is exceedingly chilling. The real meat in this plot is in John’s and Disha’s collaborative characters. Whenever they are around, something happens.
Arjun Kapoor and Tara Surtaria are completely out of sorts. In fact, the screenplay would have been much better off without them and the juvenile discussion on what separates the hero from the villain.
There is an interestingly staged fight between Abraham and Kapoor on a speeding metro train. It is interesting that the one-to-one combat happens in an emptied-out train. Not a soul to see them fight! Mohit Suri’s world is an evacuated diaspora of disaffection. The protagonists, be it Aditya Roy Kapur in Aashiqui 2 or Vidya Balan in Hamari Adhuri Kahani are incomplete unfinished loners. Where they take their sense of isolation depends entirely on what is waiting for them on the other side. In Ek Villain Returns it is definitely not love.
Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.
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