Movie Review: A Kick to Your Brain

At the onset, I understand what I am against here.

Writing a review for a Salman Khan film is a futile exercise. Like being Bappi Lahiri’s dietician. Nothing you do is going to affect anything in real. And yet, one has to go about one’s life with these pressures.

Kick is a remake of a Telugu film of the same name, starring Ravi Teja.

For those who aren’t acquainted with the Telugu film industry, a short background. Of all the film industries in the country, the Telugu film industry is the most nepotistic, caste-ridden one there is. All actors in the industry today are either sons or grandsons of actors. It is a dog-eat-dog world that is difficult to get into, and if you manage to get in, impossible to retain your place.

Among the Gandhi family that the industry is, Ravi Teja is one actor who made it on his own. There is a colony in Hyderabad – Krishnanagar – where all the strugglers of the film industry reside. Everybody from hawkers to auto drivers to cooks to waiters – everybody who resides in the colony has celluloid dreams in their mind, with just one actor to look up to – Ravi Teja.

In many ways, Ravi Teja’s films symbolise his struggle. He is always the crass, loud, goofish guy who manages to woo the smooth, svelte heroine. His lines take double entendres to a different level, his songs have triple meanings, he gets away with squeezing the girls’ lips, pinching their navels, and pressing their boobs.

Somehow, in his own weird way, Ravi Teja manages to pull off all that he does.

And Kick was his biggest hit.

 

*

 

Now, the problem with someone like Salman Khan doing a Kick, is that it will always be a sanitized version of the film. And then there’s the fact that Salman Khan does no real acting in his films.

He is simply waltzing around, mouthing lines, making faces, raising his eyebrows, and taking off his shirts. He is probably the only actor in the country (and perhaps in the world) who has no need for a script, acting, and direction.

“Director ne bola ‘Kick karte hain’, maine kick kar diya.”

If you made a three hour film of Salman Khan eating biriyani, it would still make 200 crores in three weeks. But anyway, since one has to review the film, let us get into the act.

*

 

Kick is the story of a guy who always wants a kick in life. Someone who goes out of his way to do things in different ways so that he gets an adrenaline rush from it. We all meet such guys in life; we just choose to call them assholes.

Along his weird antics, the hero (Devi – again, Salman Khan waving a middle finger to humanity’s need for naming people according to their gender) meets and falls in love with a girl. In typical Indian film style, he impresses her by doing a string of illegal things. He first bashes people and breaks property in a café. When he is arrested by the police, he goes to the police station, breaks furniture, and even strips the inspector to his underwear.

But since this is India, he goes viral on YouTube and the girl falls for him.

 

*

 

This goes on for a bit, till the girl is fed up with him for quitting jobs. For not ‘settling down’ in life. Salman being Salman, says ‘Fuck it’ and goes on to become a thief.

Not just a regular thief. But the suave, cool, kick-ass thief of the Dhoom 3 kind. The kind of thief who looks at 3D projections of plans and maps on his table, and zooms in and pushes them across screens.

Then, Randeep Hooda, who is probably going through some bad times and has signed up for the film, is engaged to the heroine and needs to catch a dreaded thief called Devil (10 points for scripting!!).

The next one hour contains some bizarre shit, thanks to extremely lazy writing. At this point, let us stop and appreciate the genius of the scriptwriting. And who has done it? Chetan Fucking Bhagat.

For all his bravado about writing, and his cribbing about not getting his due in the west, he fails to fill some basic plotholes. Take for example the scene where Devil is stuck in a river, with police surrounding him from all sides. In the next scene, he is in India planning his next heist? What happened in the middle?

Guess we’ll have to wait for a book titled ‘9 Ways I Had A Love Story and Change the Country’ to find out!

 

I slept off in the last 20 minutes, so I have no clue what really happened. But there are a few things that I noticed. Not that either of them are new to this film alone.

1. Loud Background Score: In spite of nearly seven decades of churning out musicals, Bollywood is yet to understand a background score. In most films, the background score is a loud rendition of the songs of film, in slow motion. In Kick, the background score is like a hungry 2 year old on cocaine, blaring into your ears, making you want to turn around and stab him in the heart. Thrice.
2. Hero-Villain Phone Call: Every Hindi action film has a scene where the hero calls up the villain/cop and has a long, dramatic conversation with him. The two of them are mouthing absolutely absurd lines, and each line is followed by a metal tune. Here is a sample:

 

Villain: I’m going to catch you. Be ready to listen to the music of death HAHAHAHA!

Hero: The wind cannot be caught, the sun cannot be burnt.

Villain: I like your confidence. I like how you talk, I will like how you die. Kim Kardashian has a nice ass.

Hero: Dog! Scoundrel!! You don’t know who you are talking to! Red is the colour of Chacha Chaudhry’s turban. I am rural, you’re urban.

Villain: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, How I Wonder What You Are.

Hero: Jai Mata Di, Let’s Rock. Jai Hind.

(so on and so forth)

 

*

 

Kick, true to its name, is a kick to your senses.

It is a kick to critics, to writers, and to cinema in general.

And yet, it will go on to earn 200 crores in 27 minutes. It stars our biggest star, and has been written by our greatest writer. And the director is a long time producer – another kick to all aspiring directors out there.

Go watch it if you’re into sadomasochism.