I’ve just got done with ‘Kill Dil’, and my heart is still in a state of arrest: how can you make a film with a bunch of actors who have proved they are capable of carrying a scene, and above all Govinda, which is such a dud?
This isn’t one of those films that slides after a promising start. This begins badly, plods away the way it began, and ends worse. A street-side hood picks up a couple of babies from a ‘kachre ka dabba’, raises them to shoot sharp from mouth and barrel, and the boy gang rolls along merrily till it hits a roadblock: the plot is thinner than a wafer, and older than the hills. And the treatment makes you wonder if this one came from the same gang which gave us the frothy, fun ‘Bunty Aur Babli’.
Govinda, playing Bhaiyyaji the Goon, goes through the film slitting his eyes and growling his lines, and bantering with his henchmen. Chief henchboys Dev( Ranveer Singh) and Tutu( Ali Zafar) wear leather and wield guns, surrounded by standard Yashraj designer grunge. Then Dev runs into Disha( Parineeti Chopra), and sees the light.
Nothing rescues us, however. Because Govinda can dance, he’s given a couple of completely outlandish numbers. But there’s nothing in this that he can save with his still-deft moves. Ali Zafar’s familiar amiable self is hopelessly miscast. Ranveer Singh is given a part that allows him to shoot and scoot, things he can do with ease, and is partnered with Parineeti Chopra: the two are buried under despite their best efforts.
This has steadily and sadly become a Yashraj trademark, the studio that has given Hindi cinema so many of its beloved landmarks, this cannibalizing bits and pieces of its own films without being able to give us a story we can believe in. It’s one thing to have an element or two which is exaggerated, it’s completely another to get through a full film with such few credible moments.