'Kill Dil' movie Review: It's not an unwatchable film

Casting teams all over the world are paid substantial amounts to find the best talent fitting the demand of the scripts. Some go to the extent of street-casting and ensemble a cast of 200 people, ala Anurag Kashyap’s Gangs of Wasseypur. And then there are some who get everything wrong, even with just four lead characters. Kill Dil (KD) is a perfect example of getting all the casting wrong.

To start with, it has Ali Zafar as a fearless gangster. If that doesn’t sound funny enough, there is Ranveer Singh as a softy who has cried more in the film than anyone else. KD casts Govinda as a nasty gang leader who sings and dances more than your regular bar dancer and of course, Parineeti Chopra, a wannabe sexy, med-school dropout and criminal rehabilitator who drives a Porsche, talks like a goon, parties like Pitbull..

KD is a love story between Dev (Ranveer) and Disha (Parineeti) in a backdrop of deadly hitmen. At times, it borders on a love triangle: Tutu (Ali), Dev and Disha but where Tutu is in love with Dev and not Disha. Bhaiyya Ji (Govinda) also behaves more like a possessive boyfriend of these guys than an underworld don, hence making the plot a love rhombus.

Everything around the main plot is unconvincing. Take Dev’s falling in love with Disha or Bhaiyya Ji singing an intense song asking Dev to come back before he even revolts, or Disha’s falling head over heels for Dev without any chemistry between the two - it is one face-palm moment after another.

If that is not enough, the film straight lifts the job hunt part from Imtiaz Ali’s 'Aahista Aahista', even without changing the insurance profession, keeping in line with the steady theme of unconvincing scenarios. Nitesh Tiwari wrote 'Chillar Party' for kids and probably expected the same kids to watch this film as well. 'Chillar Party' was good, by the way.

Kill Dil is a contest of showing who is more bored in the entire cast. Govinda and Ali Zafar have given each other a tough time in that contest. In some places Govinda has looked more bored while in others Ali Zafar has outdone Govinda in looking uninterested in what’s going on around him. Very obviously, both of them have not agreed with the choices made by the casting director. Govinda has shown the temperament of a hostel warden who gets angry if a girl student bypasses curfew. Too bad that it’s not a girl student and instead a brutal hit man. In Bhaiyya Ji’s kingdom, skipping food is a crime that deserves death penalty. None of this is Govinda’s fault though. It’s all lazy writing.

Ranveer Singh has worked very hard for this film. From the onset, he seems to be continuing the role he played in Gunday with a little less upper body on display. One might ask why because he clearly didn’t need to and should have known that his hard work will not be able to salvage the film. He has a couple of good scenes like the library scene in which he explores the meaning of LOL and ROFL or the itching scene with Ali. The question still remains whether he was asked by the director to cry the way he did and show his emotional side or whether it was his own improvisation. Once this mystery is resolved, we will be able to pinpoint the real culprit.

Then there is Ali Zafar. But then the question is: why Ali Zafar? It could have been Harman Baweja or Jacky Bhangnani for that matter and it would not have made any difference to anyone, including Ali. I like Ali Zafar and appreciate his talent. Tere Bin Laden was good and even London, Paris, New York was acceptable. But in Kill Dil he looks embarrassed because deep inside, he also knows that he should not have accepted this role, at least not without reading the script. Or maybe there was no script, after all. Beware Ali, wrong choices of films have ruined many careers before yours.

The less said about Parineeti Copra, the better. Instead it’s better to waste some writing space on the talent shown by Shaad Ali. He probably tried to show an utterly complex character of Disha, who while going through several criminal reforms, developed a criminal side of her own that made her pass cheesy lines to Dev in an attempt to heal the sorrow which she feels inside. All this while driving her fancy car, throwing all the parties in the world and proposing to the boy love on top of Qutub Minar with an ugly chroma in the background. Or maybe not. Maybe it was actually a thoughtless character in a senseless script.

Shaad Ali has created trust issues for me through Kill Dil. By showing a jungle under Qutub Minar. By casting baby Ali as a tough hit man. By giving a job to Ranveer in Alok Nath’s company which was benevolent even by Alok Nath’s standards. By showing happiness and celebration of two men right after the killing of the father figure who brought them up from garbage. By showing cops who did not question anyone upon finding a bullet-riddled dead body in a girl’s house. By putting song after song for anything that goes right or wrong in the film. There is a song for birthday, Diwali, meeting the girl, first date, for not finding a job and then another for finding a job, on killing people and many more. Shaad Ali has sent a chilly reminder to all of us that he is the same director who made Jhoom Barbar Jhoom and that Saathiya was probably made by Mani Ratnam in disguise.

Kill Dil is one of the worst executions of 2014. Let there be no doubt about it, even Gulzar sahab’s poetry in his own voice cannot redeem it. Watch it if you are insomniac and need a nice cool place to sleep. (Dawn)