Animal Review
The father-son relationship is always a fickle one and especially in South Asian culture. The need for a father’s legacy to be fulfilled by his son and the pressure the son must fulfil his father’s footsteps is no easy feat. Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s Animal is one of those films that explores a type of father-son relationship that is so intense that no-one can even imagine.
The film follows Ranvijay Singh (Ranbir Kapoor) is the eldest offspring to Balbir Singh (Anil Kapoor), a steel and oil magnate who’s the richest man in India. Ranvijay yearns for his father’s approval and appoints himself as man of the house as Balbir is never around. When Ranvijay learns that his sister is getting bullied, he show no mercy and beats up his sister’s perpetrators.
These antics get him sent to the U.S. for a spell. He returns no less hotheaded, promptly stealing another man’s bride (Rashmika Mandanna as Geetanjali) just before her wedding because he had a crush on her once. She doesn’t object and falls in love with him.
Following another stint in America, the couple return after Balbir is nearly killed by unknown assassins. Ranvijay immediately goes into full Seeker of Deadly Revenge mode. Drastically increasing the family’s security by drafting a small army of estranged family, he uncovers hidden foes who eventually include a deceitful in-law (Siddhant Karnick), his coldblooded hatchet man (Babloo Prithiveeraj), and finally a distant cousin (Bobby Deol) acting on a grudge dating back generations.
The need to be the ‘alpha dog’ in Vanga’s films is interesting and he shows the repercussions of needing to be one. The violence and the dialogue in Animal reflect how a man can assert his dominance and his obsession to show that he is not weak. The clash between Ranbir Kapoor and Bobby Deol is a reminder of animals fighting to be leader of the pack by them using violence, blood and gore.
Animal is certainly violent and gruesome in its storytelling but it also serves as driving each characters’ motivations which keeps the story moving.