Ek Villain Movie Review by Rajeev Masand

Rating: 2.5

June 27, 2014

Cast: Sidharth Malhotra, Shraddha Kapoor, Ritesh Deshmukh, Aamna Sharif, Kamaal R Khan, Shaad Randhawa

Director: Mohit Suri

Five minutes into Mohit Suri’s Ek Villain, and a major character is killed off. Great way to get your attention. The rest of the film is divided between flashbacks of a charming love story, and a somewhat unconvincing revenge mission.

Guru (Sidharth Malhotra) is a hot-headed, cold-blooded assassin working on the orders of a Goa don. He softens under the influence of Aisha (Shraddha Kapoor), a cheery chatterbox and selfless do-gooder, who gets under his skin despite himself. Meanwhile, Ritesh Deshmukh is Rakesh Mahadkar, a mousy lower-middle class MTNL employee, who vents his frustration over his nagging wife at the unfortunate women who make the mistake of locking horns with him. These two narratives intertwine predictably, setting off the payback plan.

Suri, a competent director, who has a knack for ripping off foreign films and ‘Indianizing’ them by adding a romantic subplot and a superhit soundtrack, employs the same formula here. The victim on this occasion is the Korean revenge saga, I Saw The Devil. Suri and his writers tone down the violence, amp up the melodrama, throw in a love story, and give the psychotic serial killer a justification for his misogyny. It’s all very Hindi filmi, complete with corny lines that’ll make you roll your eyes in disbelief.

To give credit where it’s due, Suri makes the most of this flawed script, delivering a consistently watchable film even if it isn’t always satisfying. The plot is plagued with logic issues, and there’s virtually no suspense in the cat-and-mouse chase between villain and avenger. Yet each time the thriller element fails, it’s the romantic track that returns to resuscitate the film.

Shraddha Kapoor has a luminous presence, and it’s hard to take your eyes off her when she’s on screen…although you may want to shut your ears from listening to her constant chappad-chappad. She shares a warm chemistry with Sidharth Malhotra, who does very well as the silently simmering type and gets a few nice moments to show off his brooding intensity. It’s Ritesh Deshmukh, though, who springs a surprise, delivering a compelling performance, both as the browbeaten everyman, and in his volte face as the stonehearted killer.

It’s a shame then that despite the uniformly impressive performances, and Suri’s nifty directing skills, the film is only moderately fulfilling. I’m going with two-and-a-half out of five for Ek Villain. If you’re still wondering, the real villain here is the lousy script.

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15 Comments
  1. Baba 10 years ago

    looks like the film is not good. this is a low rating

  2. Baba 10 years ago

    just back from ek villian. takes inspiration from ghajini, kites, i saw a devil , darr, baazigar to just about any film you can think of but at the end remains a very avg film. the only thing i enjoyed was the BGM at places and ritesh deshmukh in a role of a lifetime. but it also made me realise what a good actor srk once was in darr/baazigar days

    • Author
      sputnik 10 years ago

      What was the Kites similarity?

      I forgot to add that KRK was very good. Perfect casting for that role of MCP husband and he even used his 2 rupees people dialogue.

      • Baba 10 years ago

        kites had hrithik searching for the killer of barbara right throughout the film. also the backward narrative is similar.

        I dont know how you liked krk in it. him and remo were plain embarrassing and horrible.one could not even speak a word in hindi properly and another the less said the better.ekta kapoor has this fetish of casting some really useless actors in her films.prachi desai item song was boring and vulgar, she was fat. another of ekta favs.

        • Author
          sputnik 10 years ago

          KRK was playing himself. That’s why I said perfect casting for the role. He was excellent in the scene where he first nicely asks his wife did you forget the Ice and then slaps his wife.

          • Baba 10 years ago

            i dont think i ever want to see him playing anything. he is a very irritating guy with with no talent whatsoever. his expressions were like some extras in a B grade film who either stare into the camera or look down and speak due to their own awkwardness.

            the money that he has made is due to his underworld conections and thats how he lands up some tv shows and films.

  3. Baba 10 years ago

    this bgm from was used a lot in the film. it elevated the scenes. just like kaise mujhe tum herione part elevated the climax scene of ghajini

    https://youtube.com/watch?v=TGWWSMaHHqA

  4. Baba 10 years ago

  5. Author
    sputnik 10 years ago

    Watched Ek Villain. Yes it borrows the main plot of the villain killing the hero’s pregnant wife and the hero who keeps thrashing him. Even I saw the Devil had a son part which led to a very good ending.

    It has been heavily Bollywoodized though with so many back stories and sub plots and all the sentimental stuff. This is a prime example of over plotting the story and the result is that it felt like watching a never ending saga.

    The hero from the original has been changed from a cop to a Gunda/henchman with a back story from the 70s and 80s. The heroine’s character is just like Asin’s from Ghajini – annoying as hell with her non stop chatter and helping old people here instead of kids. She has a back story for being like that – she is suffering from some terminal disease and so has her bucket list but then miraculously is declared fine later. Riteish Deshmukh is the killer and he also has a backstory – he is an ordinary middle class man with a nagging wife who keeps getting insulted by women.

    Sidharth Malhotra was ok as the brooding hero seeking revenge for the most part – good in some scenes and wannabe in some. I had not liked the hero from the original and I think Sidharth was better than him. Shraddha Kapoor was so irritating. Riteish Deshmukh was very good in the negative role as well the ordinary middle class guy part. He was not as good as Min-sik Choi of Oldboy fame though who was excellent.

    ————–

    My comment on I saw the Devil.

    “Just finished watching I saw the Devil. Agree with you that is “gory, brutal kinda flick” but I did not like it that much. The violence is Saw territory and is almost like torture porn.

    The Korean police looked like a joke to me – similar to our Bollywood police.

    Choi Min-sik (Oldboy hero), who played the serial killer was excellent.

    I did not like Lee Byung-hun who played the lead that much. I think his acting was bad and why was he wearing that stupid jacket all the time. And it also seemed so silly to me that he can get anywhere that he wants so easily.”

    Link

    • Baba 10 years ago

      good review. skimmed through i saw devil. its baap of EV. will give full views later on it. sid character in EV is actually what emran hashmi usually plays. a brooding deadpan expression gangster/pscyho who meets an over-talkative girl with sufi songs in BGM and he falls in llve with her after some songs. some scenes reminded me of awarapan.agree on shardha kapor. i liked the bgm but each of the songs were forced into the film. even the main song galiyan. it was stalling the narrative.

      • Author
        sputnik 10 years ago

        Have not seen Awarapan but yeah you can see his role is like that of Emraan Hashmi.

        Except for Galiyan all the songs were bad and seemed forced. The Awari song was so slow and a completely wrong choice for an item song.

        In I Saw the Devil the hero says that he will keep interrupting the vilain’s attempts to kill to frustrate him but here Sidharth keeps doing that without any such intention. The CBI cop instead tells Sidharth that he will keep interrupting Sidharth’s attempts to frustrate him.

  6. Anjanpur685Miles 10 years ago

    I am just waiting for this latest fad of ashiqui2/villain type songs phase to finish. It does not make any sense to me.

    • Saurabh 10 years ago

      I’m sorry to say but there are no signs of this phase waning anytime soon. These type of songs get butts on the seat and the Bhatts know it. They have the tried and tested formula of ripping off acclaimed Korean movies, add some melodrama and dumb down the tension for Indian audiences and add their trademark music. Yesterday I was listening to the Johnny Gaddaar soundtrack and got laughed upon by some friends for listening to such ‘old songs’.

      • Anjanpur685Miles 10 years ago

        Lol. Well, I think this is a phase and will pass sooner or later.

  7. Baba 10 years ago

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