Animal: Ranbir Kapoor goes ultra-violent with bad boy vibe in quest for superstardom

Ranbir Kapoor is out to redefine the Bollywood antihero in his new film Animal. Soaked in blood and gore, and venting bottled-up angst, he wants to update emotional and sexual aggression on screen. His character Arjun Singh is prone to ultra-violence and lives on the wrong side of law and societal codes. The plot of the crime action drama traces the roots of Arjun’s fury in a fragmented relationship he shared as a child with his father, about whom he is evidently obsessed. Flawed characters, at times ridden with angst, have been the highlight of Ranbir Kapoor ’s career, from his early phase of Bachna Ae Haseeno (2008) through the days of Rockstar (2011), Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani and Besharam (2013), Tamasha (2015) and Sanju (2018), and right up to Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar earlier this year. With Animal , the actor takes the bad boy vibe to a brutal new level basking in borderline toxicity. Violence is the force that propels Arjun Singh’s larger-than-life story, and the trait is meant to mirror the inner rage of a character that otherwise fits the brooding, silent prototype of Bollywood’s angry young man. Animal, in this context, aims to be different from other flawed protagonists that Kapoor has played till date, for the unapologetic viciousness that gives vent to the character’s emotional core. Almost all of Kapoor’s imperfect protagonists in the past have been romantic heroes and, with the possible exception of Rockstar, none of these characters tried to seriously probe the emotions of a man who is scared of loving and losing. The standard Ranbir Kapoor loverboy, although flawed, is after all a happy-go-lucky character brimming with life and witticism — a lovable character despite his warts. Only a few months ago in his last release Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar, the actor played a role that answers to the template, as a break-up expert, bringing alive the character of a cynical young man who crafts specialised solution packages for clients wanting to end relationships. The element of toxicity that such a character entails was smartly garbed by the feel-good execution of the film, a rom-com that eventually sees the right girl entering his life to teach the relationship-phobic, philandering hero a lesson in true love. Fear of commitment in relationships, in fact, is a common factor among a majority of the characters Ranbir Kapoor has played before Animal. If the actor’s character Mickey Arora in Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar represents a kind of cynicism that seems to be consuming modern relationships, his protagonists Raj Sharma in Bachna Ae Haseeno, Kabir Thapar in Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani and Ved Sahni in Tamasha are similarly relationship-phobic men who realise the essence of life only after they truly fall in love with a woman, interestingly, in all three cases essayed by Deepika Padukone. For Ranbir Kapoor, Arjun Singh and Animal represent a different sort of attempt at playing a flawed character in two ways. First, contrary to the relationship phobia in love that props the protagonist and his story in most of his films so far, the flaw about Kapoor’s character in Animal springs from his extreme obsession for his father Balbir Singh, played by Anil Kapoor. “Your love for your father is not affection, it is a disease,” Rashmika Mandanna as Arjun’s anguished wife Geetanjali tells him at one point in the film. Deprived of paternal attention in his growing-up years, Arjun is driven to a state of restlessness where he is prone to deranged violence and, ultimately, a life of crime as a gangster. It is a departure from Kapoor’s comfort zone as a romantic hero who, although wayward in disposition, still fitted the bill as a Bollywood heartthrob.

Secondly, if his earlier flawed characters such as Mickey, Raj, Kabir and Ved were new-age protagonists rooted in GenNow realism, Ranbir Kapoor actually attempts to go retro with Animal. Arjun Singh’s inherent machismo is imagined in a way it leaves little scope for political correctness about the character. That Kapoor should attempt his most over-the-top career push since the 2013 dud Besharam with Animal, therefore, seems like a calculated risk. The fact becomes pertinent if you note the film is directed by Sandeep Reddy Vanga, whose earlier effort Kabir Singh drew allegations of archaic and toxic masculinity from several quarters. The method actor that he is, Ranbir Kapoor needed a reference point to interpret his role in Animal and, quite interestingly, found one in his past. “I have never heard or felt like this. I think eventually, subconsciously, I thought of my father — the way he used to speak. He was a very passionate and aggressive man,” the actor said, remembering his father, late actor Rishi Kapoor, at the film’s trailer launch in the Capital. Revealing deeper sentiments at a promotional event in Hyderabad, he further stated: “While I was growing up, my father was very busy. He was shooting most of the time — that too, double shifts and triple shifts. He was travelling everywhere, so there was not a really friendly relationship between us. We couldn’t just sit and chat and I really have that one regret in my life. I wish I could be friends with my father.” It is, perhaps, easy to understand Ranbir Kapoor’s slant at playing imperfect characters such as Arjun Singh in Animal. It may have been a way to evade an obvious image trap — given his clean-cut, nice-guy demeanour he could have easily fallen into the rut as a traditional chocolate-box hero. And while one cannot hold the leading man responsible for a debacle, it is interesting how many of Kapoor’s films where the actor has played the conventional hero, have performed below expectation — think Shamshera, Jagga Jasoos, Anjaana Anjaani or Saawariya. With Animal, Ranbir Kapoor has gone in all guns blazing, in his loudest shot at Bollywood superstardom yet.