Kaabil ya Kaabil nahi?

With so much time to squander during this quarantine, I’ve been catching up on movies I’ve missed out on. Every week, my friends and I hop on Netflix Party to watch a movie together, and we take turns picking the movie. While I’ve enjoyed some of these films—in my opinion, Inglourious Basterds was ingenious—some of them were outright horrible, while others were...meh. Most recently, I watched the Hindi film Kaabil (2017) (transl. capable), and while the premise of the movie initially caught my eye, it was merely a gimmick, and the movie ended up unfolding into a stereotypical action film. I will be mentioning important plot elements in my analysis of Kaabil, so if you don’t want to be spoiled, turn away now! Do also note that as an Indian American who is not a film critic, I may have a different perception of the movie than the reviews you may see on Rotten Tomatoes or IMDB. Nevertheless, it is a unique take on the movie, and I wish to provide another lens through which moviegoers can view the film and its elements. (Scroll down to continue.)

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Kaabil is a story of a blind couple, starring Hrithik Roshan and Yami Gautham. When the wife Supriya (Gautham) is raped by the brother of a corrupt politician and his friend, and the police refuse to help out, the husband Rohan (Roshan) sets out on revenge. Essentially, the movie is divided into two halves. During the first half, the romance between Rohan and Supriya is developed. The turning point of the movie is rather quick; this is the moment when Supriya is raped, the couple seeks help from the police but are turned away, and Supriya commits suicide. The second half of the movie focuses on Rohan executing his revenge plot. I have to give props to the directors of Kaabil for somewhat developing a romantic storyline. Way too often in Bollywood movies do we see a “love at first sight” relationship unfold, sometimes because a wallflower character is needed to boost viewership. And while I think this unfortunate trend did manifest itself to some degree in Kaabil, I appreciate the time taken—nearly half of the movie—to establish the romantic relationship between Rohan and Supriya. Admittedly, at times this relationship did have cliche elements (e.g. Rohan essentially fell in love with Supriya after very few encounters with her); moreover, the relationship was actually crucial to the plot, which may not be the case for other Bollywood movies that have a poorly-developed and useless romantic line. However, it was definitely a departure I welcomed—and it ensures viewers feel as heartbroken as Rohan when Supriya is raped and commits suicide.

Unfortunately, the second half of the movie is where Kaabil deteriorates. Everyone loves a revenge story, and the satisfactory romantic development in the first half elicits a vehement support from the audience for Rohan as he goes about avenging the humiliation and death of his beloved wife. Indeed, the second half was a stark contrast from the first half: while the first half of the movie is filled with romance, the second half is all bloodshed and violence. Viewers become so invested in the revenge plot that they essentially forget that (1) Rohan is blind and (2) Rohan is avenging his dead wife. It seems as if the directors—and to a degree, Hrithik Roshan—forgot this too, as the second half of Kaabil ultimately unfolds into a cliche Bollywood action movie. While the movie attempts to remind viewers of the romantic relationship serving as the basis for the revenge plot with hallucinations of Supriya and flashbacks of memories with Supriya, it fell short. I would have loved to see a better intertwining of the two genres, romance and action, in the second half of the movie. However, this half of Kaabil is what reveals its biggest shortcoming: take away the fact that Rohan and Supriya are blind, and you realize Kaabil is just another action-driven revenge film. The blindness of the two characters serves as a clever facade: it makes Supriya seem more vulnerable (i.e. even more of a damsel in distress) and Rohan more of a hero as he, surprisingly and without explanation, overcomes all the obstacles of his blindness to kill off every character involved in the cover-up of Supriya’s rape. The directors should’ve put in more thought as to how to make this film a masterpiece, whether it had been adding more unique facets to the film or actually having the characters’ blindness play a more integral role in the storyline. And yes, while Rohan’s blindness does play a role in his revenge plot—such as when he sniffs out Amit, who is about to ambush him—the nature of his blindness is secondary to the action scenes of the film.

Nowadays, Bollywood has an urge to address societal issues in India through their films, and Kaabil is no exception. The film centers around police corruption; in the film, members of the police department are bribed by the corrupt politician Madhavrao, who seeks to protect his brother Amit from being charged with Supriya’s rape. While police corruption is indeed an issue in Indian society, the portrayal of police corruption in Kaabil was rather cliche: sleazy policemen unquestionably serving as the pawns of a head honcho figure, usually one with tremendous power, money, or both. (An interesting dynamic between the police and Madhavrao begins to emerge towards the end of the movie, as Officer Chaube toys with Madhavrao by refusing to release the name of his brother’s murderer until the next day. I wish this irregular dynamic was expanded upon.) Framing police corruption in the context of rape and suicide, however, was a brilliant use of pathos by the directors—as rape and suicide are extremely serious matters, and seeing the police dismiss Supriya’s rape and suicide instills a disheartening mood for the audience. In pursuit of this societal issue, the movie rarely deviates from the storyline with musical numbers; rather, most of the few musical numbers were smoothly integrated into the first part of the film—and, while making it rather cliche, aided the development of the romance between Rohan and Supriya. Unfortunately, the tendency for Bollywood to include lewd elements into its movies for viewership was evident by the remix of Kishore Kumar’s “Sara Zamana,” an uncalled musical number that randomly appears closer to the second half of the movie and features Urvashi Rautela as a dancer in a club.

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There are many more elements of Kaabil that can be scrutinized and many ways to improve the film—and I could spend numerous paragraphs delving into them! My ultimate verdict, however, is that Kaabil falls short of establishing itself as a unique film by merely masquerading a predictable revenge story with the blindness of the main characters. 6.2/10