Ek Villain Review

One Line Review: A film with a good plot, but typically Bollywoodish performances and direction; nothing more than a one time watch.

Positive Points: Engaging and different plot; Siddharth Malhotra's performance; realistic action and violence.

Negative Point: Dialogues and performances that do not match the film's plot; average direction that doesn't offer much to the audiences.

Plot: Guru (Siddharth Malhotra) is a gangster who works for Caesar (Remo Fernandes), one of the most dreaded gangsters in Goa. Guru, who has a dark past of seeing his family being killed in front of him, is almost like an emotionless and a totally ruthless man. Ayesha (Shraddha Kapoor), who is a bubbly, chattering and a happy go lucky girl, has a wish list to complete, which includes "save a life".

No sooner does she sees Guru in jail, she bails him takes him to help her finish one of her wishes. This way, she helps people and goes on completing her wish list. However, this starts changing Guru and soon he is on his way to give up his criminal ways. On the other hand, inspector Aditya Rathod (Shaad Randhawa) is keeping a constant watch on him.

Now Ayesha is suffering from a life threatening disease. On the other hand in Mumbai, there is Rakesh (Riteish Deshmukh), who loves his family and also loves to kill women.

Direction And Other Technical Aspects: Direction is not any different that you can expect from an average Bollywood movie nowadays. The scenes and sequences are so predictable and set in such a generic way that they don't really engage someone who has been looking forward for some real thrill.

However, the action cinematography has been done well and the fight scenes involving the protagonist as well as the violent ones by the antagonist do really make you sit up straight and put your mind into it.

Performances: Siddharth Malhotra has played his role as a life hating gangster well, but falls short when it comes to showing some real pain and anger. His screams are almost phony and made up.

Shraddha Kapoor's not-so-impressive performance is something expected and does not add much into the film overall.

What really needs to be mentioned here is Riteish Deshmukh's impressive performance which has taken a complete flip since he was seen in 'Grand Masti' last time. He performs the role of a psychotic and lost serial murderer, who is a calm and loving father and a husband at home and becomes a bloodthirsty and brutal killer outside.

Music: "Teri Galliyaan" by Ankit Tiwari is a romantic number with a hauntingly melodious voice. "Zaroorat" sung by Mustafa Zahid is one sad song that resonates the sadness and grief convincingly.

"Banjaara" sung by Mohammad Irfan and composed by Mithoon is also unforgettable though not that impressive as the others.

Final verdict: Though the director intended to make 'Ek Villain' as an out of the box romantic thriller comedy, it fails to deliver because it retains is typically Bollywood like characteristics such as the typical dialogues, your everyday filmy performances and direction. Though the plot is different, but is not that impressive. One could have called the film 'out of the box' three and a half star but certainly cannot do so because it doesn't do anything different in the aforementioned aspects. This one time watch deserves two and a half stars for sure.