movie reviews

Ek Villain Returns Movie Review: If This Was A Bollywood Villain, He’d Say “Khaayega Kela” Like Gunda’s Ibu Hatela At Best

July 29, 2022

369 6 minutes read

Ek Villain Returns Movie Review Rating:

Star Cast: Arjun Kapoor, John Abraham, Disha Patani, Tara Sutaria, J.D Chakravarthi & Ensemble.

Director: Mohit Suri.

( Photo Credit – T-Series / Facebook )

What’s Good: 20 seconds of Riteish Deshmukh in the end and that it all ends.

What’s Bad: Someone approved this circus and even found 4 actors to only make clowns out of them.

Loo Break: Are you still planning to watch it in the theatre or anywhere for that matter?

Watch or Not?: If you hate your sanity and hold Disha shouting ‘Aae Villain’ without any specific reason, go ahead. Even John tears his t-shirt without a reason. Wait, can anything here have a reason? NO.

Language: Hindi.

Available On: In Theatres Near You.

Runtime: 129 Minutes.

User Rating:

Two couples with no reasoning whatsoever are having some extreme problems. One of which is a borderline maniac duo who kind of takes inspiration from Harley Quinn & Joker (no, no, not that good, just a tall order similarity). For some weird reasons again, everybody wants to be a villain and I wish some hero killed them all in the first 15 minutes. I don’t know what the plot was or was there a plot even.

( Photo Credit – Still from Ek Villain Returns )

Ek Villain Returns Movie Review: Script Analysis

What is my job tell me, please? I want a week where every Hindi film I watch is at least substantial and not just a project made for unknown money re-routing purposes. Called a sequel to the 2014 release starring Sidharth Malhotra, Shraddha Kapoor, and Riteish Deshmukh, this new circus of a film that brings four actors together is nothing less than a spiritual brother to Race 3, Rashtra Kavach Om or Heropanti 2.

Screenplay written by Mohit Suri and Aseem Arora, Ek Villain Returns is everything that a suspense thriller is not supposed to be. It feels like Suri has completely forgotten what he is known for and at this point is writing a script on the sets everyday. Forget a structure, there is no story and I don’t know how could have anyone pitched this idea. I am more surprised that someone in this world green signaled not just the script, but even the final cut.

Not even going deeper, the opening 30 minutes is literally people taking revenge for things that don’t have the need to harass people, damage properties, or even hurt anyone physically. For example, Arjun gatecrashes his ex-girlfriend’s wedding just so it isn’t her who dumped him but it’s him. Dude, she is dressed as a bride and the groom isn’t you, she already won even before you hatched your iconic plan. And the rest of it only keeps getting worse.

People enter and exit as per their available dates for shooting and possibly that is even how Suri and Arora were writing the scenes on the day of the shoot. Nothing makes sense, no plot connects completely. Forget about the big picture, even the purpose of each character is so comical that it makes little to no sense. Imagine a man killing a woman just because he was dumped by his love to whom he never really confessed his love. Worse, just when he kills his first victim in broad daylight on the streets of South Bombay, no one is bothered. Mohit Suri decides to play the most romantic song in the album at this point. Yes, Galliyaan fam. I survived.

Okay, there is no meat in the world-building of this weird video montage, but aren’t the ‘villains’ supposed to be dreadful? Remember how Riteish made all of us uncomfortable? Here, the word Villain is so loosely used that everybody just wants to be one. Why? No reason. Disha Patani plays Rasika, a part so bad that how can she even agree to do it? A salesgirl trying to meet her monthly target but wears a bralette that is definitely her two months salary if she is a salesgirl. She is always horny and encourages people to kill people because, No reason! One character dies because another hugs her too tight. Imagine, the cause of death on her death certificate.

Everything else is equally messy, confusing, and abysmally bad. Add to it Aseem Arora’s iconic dialogues that make little to no sense. In a pool of weird lines like “Lekin threesomes, oh sorry, triple seat allowed nhi hai na,” he throws a shayari and makes it even more bad. Seemed like Milap Zaveri was a ghost co-writer. Not a good addition.

Ek Villain Returns Movie Review: Star Performance

I want to ask each one of these actors if their paychecks were big enough to have done this amount of self damage to their careers. Arjun Kapoor, I hope this is the last one in your wrong script choices phase and Lady Killer and Kuttey bring back the glorious side in you. He plays Gautam with a Mehra and only knows about taking revenge almost from everyone around. So one tone and unnecessary that his only existence is to create a mess and then solve it by creating more.

John Abraham at this point needs a break and a bird’s eye view on his own filmography. This is the third fifth film where he gets a character that is borderline comical and has no arc to it other than leading to the moment he tears his t-shirt and shows his bulging and veiny muscles. He plays a cab driver with abs and tells everyone to rate him all the time. Before the interval, Disha has s*x with him and gives him stars on the glass of the car. Creepy, cringe & hilarious.

Tara Sutaria is Tara from Marjaavaan but this time she can talk, sing actually. She enters the scene as a female version of Yashraj Mukhate and in an alternate universe, this could be what have happened if Gopi Bahu seeked revenge. I want to know what fuelled her attitude as Aarvi because she was literally shaped to be the damsel in distress. Talking of distress, Disha Patani looking like Sonal Chauhan for some reasons, wears the costliest of clothes for the poorest character and I say that economically and in terms of writing too. She says some of the most cringe worthy lines and again makes no sense. We are not even discussing her motivation. Because she only giggles all the time.

There is JD Chakravarthi from Satya and why did you even chose to appear in front of us with this decade later sir? He is the only good thing about this one. But there is also a tiger who must have had existential crisis throughout the post-production because John ‘sushs’ him like he is a tamed Labrador. Save Tigers for real you guys.

( Photo Credit – Still from Ek Villain Returns )

Ek Villain Returns Movie Review: Direction, Music

Malang was a surprise package because it was a good film. Mohit Suri what happened? People jump from one high-rise tower to another by breaking the glass walls of both the buildings but coming out of it without a single scratch. I am not making this up. A man is pushed under a moving metro from the front but the metro driver is least bothered. He kind of enjoys the fight inside the moving train and increases the speed as per DOP’s requirements.

The DOP on the other hand is making a music video with daily soap operas. The lighting looks so fake and so do the sets that feel freshly made for shooting. Visual effects by bending two visuals into each other and fading the above layer are 2000. We deserve better. The movie keeps changing the timeline and the editor with his questionable art makes it worse.

Music has been Suri’s superpower forever, but this is a massive failure. I still listen to Mohammad Irfan singing the soothing Banjare Ko Ghar when it rains, or the amazing Awari for the vibe. But Returns has the most forgettable Mohit Suri album ever.

Ek Villain Returns Movie Review: The Last Word

I don’t want to hate films. There is money put in making them and efforts of hundreds of people. For the love of cinema and your bank balance, please invest in movies that are substantial and deserve to be made. Every bad film kills the commerce of a deserving one and that triggers the anger more than anything. Someone after the screening said this is a mass movie. Masses you need to ask for better, this doesn’t deserve you.