Movie review: 'Kabir Singh' is despicable but it may become a hit

The problem is not that Kabir Singh, a violent, misogynistic and egotistical alcoholic, is loved or hated. It is the fact that he is celebrated, writes Veer Arjun Singh

Don’t get me wrong. If Kabir Singh was a real person, he would be among the nice ones. All that this ace surgeon needs is the obeisance of a beautiful woman to stay the course of excellence. What if he gets angry often? The man loves and protects his woman with all his might. It’s not his fault that the woman is drawn to his terrifying authority. After all, he is a go-getter, a real-life superhero, who can drink and smoke his way through a football match and fix and break bones with unrivalled accuracy. Kabir Singh’s abs, lungs, liver and masculinity may be fictitious, but his traits are real. He is just another man expressing himself too often. 

There’s not a single dull moment in Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s Bollywood remake of Telugu film Arjun Reddy. It runs for almost three hours without long monologues, stupefying action or song and dance sequences. It’s the story of a man who has lost in love because the world does not understand his singular motivation to live, which is love — the truly, madly, deeply, obsessively kind. So he stays drunk and angry through the film. 

The chiselled and bearded Shahid Kapoor expresses Kabir Singh stupendously well. He breaks through the predictability of the character’s angry outbursts with stealth and surprise. You know he is going to get mad, but are still amused at the way Kapoor does it each time. He is so natural that his real-life neighbours should be petrified.

Kapoor finds a great co-actor in Soham Majumdar, who plays Singh’s comically hapless best friend, Shiva, who repeatedly tries to recover his good-hearted mate from the body of an addict. He even offers his sister’s hand in marriage to the alcoholic main man. That man just needed a “good woman” to “settle down”. But Preeti Sikka played by Kiara Advani is the only woman he will settle for. Advani, like the leading lady in a man’s world, is the doll she was made to be. Nothing less and nothing more is asked of her. Let’s talk about the man again.

So Vanga built a flawed character with Arjun Reddy and put him through real-life situations. The film and its remake could have been bold takes on the complexities of psychopathic genius. Instead, this man is protected from the consequences of his actions like a baby. He has an army of loving friends and family members who don’t call him out. Because his longing for this woman is sincere — if you see a few slaps across the face simply as raw passion and true love, that is.

It’s not the eponymous lead character of Kabir Singh but Vanga’s treatment of it that appalls me. In an in-house court hearing, Singh proudly admits to have operated on all his patients intoxicated. Equally appalling is the scene where he almost makes a woman take her pants off at knifepoint. He is very nearly a murderer and a rapist. But from the establishing shot of Singh and Sikka between the sheets on a beach to a family photograph towards the end, Singh is loved, protected and glorified. This man doesn’t appear to deserve love of any kind; yet, the crafty narrative manipulates the audience into identifying with his misery and empathising with his broken heart.

Looking at the morning show occupancy, Kabir Singh is on its way to becoming a box office hit. The despicable film will certainly enthuse those who relate to it but is so masochistic that it might even pull in those who don’t. Go watch the manly man’s second outing on the screen, if you must. But there can be no third attempt. Kabir Singh, the first of his name, must now die.