`Ek Villain` review: Tad overdone melodrama

Director Mohit Suri has made sure that with the trailers for `Ek Villain` the curiosity is raised to a palpable level. The thriller genre in Bollywood is so unexplored that a premise of the movie should come as a breather.

Director Mohit Suri has made sure that with the trailers for `Ek Villain` the curiosity is raised to a palpable level. The thriller genre in Bollywood is so unexplored that this movie should come as a breather.It was good to see the theatre houseful and many others queuing up for a movie that promises neither mushy romance nor comedy. The style of the motion picture is out and out thrill based, and the script and the timeline makes for an admirable tension that has been maintained throughout the length of the movie.

But there is a catch. The filmmaker has not been able to break out of the mould of melodrama that he has so far used in many of his movies. Even though this remake of the Korean flick `I Saw The Devil` is well modelled to suit the Indian audience, and retain an U/A certificate, Suri fails to capitalise on a very well built up interest through his promos, and tight lipped crew. Sidharth Malhotra plays the brooding Guru with the back story of a heart breaking childhood. Shraddha plays an effervescent and rather chatty girl, Aisha who manages to steal Guru`s heart. Guru leaves behind his dark past, to build a life with his lady love. Unfortunately their love story is cut short when Aisha is tragically killed. Riteish Deshmukh stars in a negative role for the first time. And he is magnificent. It is high time for a talented actor like Riteish Deshmukh to finally explore movies like `Ek Villain`. He has out-shined and outperformed every actor in the movie and is possibly the biggest reason you should go and watch `Ek Villain`. This might be the turning point for Deshmukh as he would definitely be cast outside his comfort zone in Hindi movies whether in negative shades or in more character based roles in future. Filmmaker Karan Johar hit the nail on its head when he said that this was Riteish`s career best performance. Sidharth is hardly convincing as a brooding, serious looking anti-hero. He ends up looking much out of his usual garb of a romantic hero. Even in his intense scenes and action sequences, Riteish easily overpowers with his subtle performance. Shraddha`s character fails too with some badly written emotional dialogues which really eat into the thrill of the film. The worst mistakes are made in casting Remo Fernandez and Kamaal R Khan. Their roles are practically useless in the movie. Apart from very bad acting and some action scenes, Remo has nothing more to offer. And the less said about KRK, the better. It seems that Suri has cast him only to make the audience realise that such men are more loathful than psychopaths serial-killers. The plot line moves interestingly between flashbacks and present day, almost seamlessly. The cinematography is not that great but the editing is crisp. The only qualm I have with the movie is that it did not need to establish the back stories of each of the actors, they could have kept some in darkness just to leave the audience asking for more. Especially Aisha`s bubbly nature and innate goodness needn`t have a tragedy attached to it. The music is hummable and definitely a lot of people would love the intense romance, but sounds somewhat tragic and monotonous when put in perspective of the movie. `Teri Galliya` and `Banjara` are really romantic tracks which would be remembered for quite sometime. The unveiling of the visceral saga has a lot of strong characters and Mohit has done a good job in adapting a foreign film and complimenting it with the drama that the Indian audience is used to. But he has gone a tad over in making a thriller. Maybe, filmmakers should step out of this trap more often and we wouldn`t be too far from making beacons of world cinema.