An alternate “Kick”
By now most of you would have spend either loosen some weight on your wallets or bandwidth in watching the Salman-khan starrer Eid-bonanza titled “Kick”, a remake of telugu blockbuster with the same name starring Ravi Teja.
The storyline runs about a guy with an adrenaline rush who is always in search of a “kick” in everything he does. From how he answers nature’s call to beating up eve-teasers to everything that has the remotest possibility of serving him with a kick.
He meets a girl, impresses her, shocks her father, has a fallout, becomes “robinhood” and the story unfolds like any other. Simply put, this is not something which you would have never seen before. Yes, stunts, dance moves, are good and Jaquiline looks ravishing and gorgeous, while Salman is at his usual self.
There is one big element in the Hindi-kick that wasn’t there in the original, the presence of a main villain. Here we have, Mr. Nawazuddin Siddiqui, our very own Faisal khan from Gangs of wasseypur. He is the kind of villain that in a bollywood fan-fare, you’d hardly come across. The quintessential part of the movie, scenes graced by him, is a treat. He could have very well been the joker of the Dark Knight, or a Rauf Lala of Agneepath, only if his role was a little more.
Shiv (Nawaz’s character) is cunning, shrewd, manipulative business tycoon, who distrusts everyone around him. Tries to be a step ahead of his rivals, dramatic twists are what he loves and being just simply obvious isn’t his style.
He isn’t the muscular macho-villain but a sharp mind with an army of trained thugs who’ll kill for him, money he has plenty and a public image of a good Samaritan that gives him the mask to fool people around. One-liners, the eccentricity, and an evil laugh are what make him the devil.
It’s another thing that Salman is called the devil (or rather he himself calls himself), and Shiv (Nawazuddin) has a charitable trust named “angel”, yet a little more work in building this battle between the conflict of “Angel” and “Devil” could have been something good. But then, who wants to do the extra work? Going ahead with the Sallu-fanfare masala entertainer in the holiday season and bringing in the moolah home, is what everyone needs right?
Bollywood requires villains in their scripts and a change from the heroes hogging all the space of their own. Even the Telugu version was much better than this one, made years before.
For the sake of rating, I couldn’t get the required “kick” to give it more than 1.5/5. And even that is mostly because of Nawaz.