Kabir Singh Movie Review {3.0}: A journey from heaven to hell
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Love is not for faint hearted. Especially if your boyfriend happens to be Kabir Singh, an obsessive and compulsive man of extremes. He can either suffocate you with his passionate kiss or just abandon you with a stinging slap. Caught in this insane play of raging hormones is Preeti, the object of Kabir’s unwavering obsession.
KABIR SINGH is a violent love story of a flawed hero who turns himself into a total misfit in his professional and personal world.
So KABIR SINGH should come with a disclaimer that his unreasonable hedonistic and masochistic behaviour should not be dissected by out-on-war feminists nor it should be eulogized by bottle guzzling Devdas gang.
An official remake of a superhit southern tornado, ARJUN REDDY, the film is a journey of a brilliant doctor that begins at a medical campus and ends in the filthy by lanes of Mumbai’s Dharavi. Interestingly, the reason for this heaven to hell self-rampage is not exactly his spurned love interest but his uncontrolled arrogance that comes out of extreme intelligence and supreme professional competence. A lethal combination that can take you to the moon or make you scrap the rock bottoms and Kabir chooses the later.
One is almost tempted to put aside KABIR SINGH as just another story of a jilted-in-love wayward but one must credit director, Sandeep Reddy Vaanga for showcasing unbridled aggression and self- destruction in completely unexpected ways.
In the process he has actually broken all the barriers of modesty on the silver screen. Imagine Kabir cooling down his jumping jack with a fistful of crushed ice on a busy road or injecting himself with a fatal dose of morphine over alcohol only to urinate in his pants and pass out of his senses !!!
On the hindsight, in the pursuit of being brutally bare-boned and painfully raw, KABIR SINGH tends to glamorise his never-ending booze-cocaine bouts and smoking pots. Finally one loses count of planted smooches and lighted cigarettes in total, sometimes even two at a time !!!!
And Preeti has no option but succumb to his controlling ways. Her unquestioning and silent love presents itself as a perfect fodder for Kabir’s misplaced ego that can ruthlessly cut down anything or anyone crossing his path for whatever reasons. “ I am rebel with a cause” is his answer to all follies.
But, just like his faithful friend, we get really tired of this performing-surgeries-by-the-day and getting stoned-by-the-night routine. Film refuses to move forward from these drunk-to-death episodes. A major lacuna lies in its length of 3 hours and background scenario.
Barring main leads and their friends, rest of the junta lives in 80’s. This Delhi medical college pupils wear ‘pleated trousers’ with hair matted to the skull while girls stick to Salwar Kameezes and oiled hair to complete the look ☹. But college authorities are OK with a girl staying in a boys hostel coz they have to bow down before university topper’s my-way-or-high-way attitude.
But one person makes us forget all the flaws associated with the film and that is, Shaheed Kapoor. His piercing eyes and smouldering intensity could almost melt the screen. His body language of a super successful surgeon and a defeated lover at the same time is worth every penny. His Kabir Singh of exaggerated self-pride and towering superiority complex will remain unchallenged for a long time in Bollywood though die-hard fans of ARJUN REDDY may still swear by Vijay Devarakonda’s performance in the original.
Nevertheless, Shahid Kapoor is an effortless swag-king making even a crumpled white kurta with cool steel shades into a uber style statement.
Kiara Advani is a meek girlfriend who gets ‘habituated’ to her boyfriend’s dominating love simply because other boys have ceased to exist out of ‘respect’ for the senior doc. She looks beautiful in her peaches and rose kurtas but has nothing more to offer than repeat, “ Baby, I love you” for 100th time.
Very real and very believable is Kabir’s friend cum saviour, Majumdar who bails him out of every sticky situation and guards his back through thick and thin. The film celebrates this hard-to-find bromance in a wonderful way.
Arjan Bajwa as his mature elder brother and Suresh Oberoi as his concerned father are top-class. Yester year actress, Kamini Kaushal as English-speaking lovable Dadi is much adored and remembered for her honest performance.
But what cracks up the audience every now and then are the acid-dipped dialogues that are loaded in sarcasm and delivered with a dead pan face by Shaheed….call it an excellent example of wry humour.
Thumping background score matches the high testosterone levels of Kabir Singh and is in tune with the film’s disruptive space.
