Kabir Singh: Devdas rebooted as a Lust Story
“Kabir Singh” is the Hindi remake of highly successful Telegu movie “Arjun Reddy”.
Though I have not seen the original, but somehow it felt as a frame to frame
copy of the original only difference being the premise being shifted to Delhi and Mumbai.
Kabir Singh written by the director of the original Sandeep Vanga and who is also debuting in Bollywood with this movie, explores the Male Chauvinism to the hilt. So in the movie we come across the really bright and extremely short tempered, extremely stubborn character Kabir Singh (Shahid Kapoor) who is a terror in college and does whatever he likes, as if being a good student is a license of doing all the anti-social activities possible in college. The first half is dedicated to the college life of Kabir Singh and how he comes across this demure muted girl Priti (Kiara Advani) from first year and Kabir falls in love or should I say gets infatuated to her, because the love story between the main lead never felt like love but a lust story to be honest. So Kabir almost breezes through the first half stalking ( That is the correct word) the girl of his dreams which crashes in the intermission point, which is still tolerable. Second half is
dedicated to how Kabir Singh is hell bent on destroying himself as he did not get his love almost the Devdas way, the new addition being he becomes sex maniac along with alcohol and drugs. In the second half Kabir’s self-destruction jibe is repeated so many times, that by the time the character has a change of heart you are least bothered as an audience. The climax adds up to the test of your patience and you just want the ordeal to end.
One of the biggest flaw of the movie is its run time of 172 minutes and the movie could have easily been edited by 30 to 40 minutes.
The biggest flaw of the movie is that it justifies everything which is wrong from alcoholism, to drug abuse to woman beating to being a sex maniac. And the funny part is the youth in the audience are enjoying it, which is a serious concern.
Sandeep Vanga, justifies everything that Kabir Singh does wrong and at the end the redemption is so feeble that it gets unnoticed.
The movie is bearable only for one person and that is Shahid Kapoor who does a brilliant job with his performance of Kabir Singh. The best part of Shahid Kapoor is that he gets so engrossed in the character that there is no difference between the character and the actor, another feather in his cap. Kiara Advani who plays Priti, Kabir’s Love interest is muted in substantial part of the movie and only speaks up in the climax, but she looks good and her chemistry with Shahid Kapoor was just too good. Kamini Kaushal as Kabir’s Dadi get quite a screen space and is a lovable character. But another actor who also creates an impact is Soham Majumdar who plays Kabir’s best friend Shiva, rather your heart goes out to the
character when he supports Kabir Singh in all his ups and downs, really a commendable performance.
Other actors like Suresh Oberoi, Dolly Minhas, Arjan Bajwa, Nikita Dutta, Adil Hussain could hardly make an impact because of the under rated writing.
I may sound cynical but such movies should be conceptualized also looking at how it’s going to impact the population at large. I will go with 2 and a Half stars.
Movie Rating: 
(2.5 / 5)