Simmba Hindi Movie

Feature Film | 2018
Critics:
A street smart orphan realises that the corrupt cops have money and power, so he grows up to become one. Ranveer Singh crackles in the title role of Simmba and wins us over in this simple tale of bad cop turning into gold. Eminently watchable!
Dec 27, 2018 By Manisha Lakhe


You enter the theatre with trepidation. Rohit Shetty brand of films can be deafening and blinding. Each time Bajirao Singham (Ajay Devgn) punches or slaps the bad guys there is a distinct possibility that the sound guy will crank up the volume of the slap beyond tolerable. And the acid colors of vehicles colliding or exploding mid air or both will surely make you run for cover. Simmba did not need any colliding vehicles. Ranveer Singh was enough.


Ranveer Singh has perhaps the best comic timing of them all today. He delivers all his corny punchlines really well. Stars with a, 'Pamper me or you will hamper me...' And before you look at your neighbor and say, 'Whaaa?' he's on to, 'Dard hai ghutne mein, takleef hai uthne mein.'


His Marathi sounds more authentic than Bajirao Singham's delivery. But Singham had nicer songs. Simmba wins simply because Ranveer Singh has so much energy, but then we all know that. As Simmba would say, 'Tell me something I don't know.'


So Simmba as a little lad watches power at play when he sees a corrupt cop counting cash after beating up the leader of pickpockets, and decides he will study hard and become a policeman. I gagged at the 'Police' tattoo on Simmba's arm. But it got a whole lot of whistles, that's for sure. Grown up Simmba is very clear. He wants to make lots of money, and allows baddies like Durga Ranade (played wonderfully by Sonu Sood) to call him a dog who instead of Pedigree, gets fed with cash. Simmba has been posted to the Miramar Police Station in Goa and as long as he keeps his mouth shut and helps the baddie Durga Ranade to continue doing his thing all is okay.


This gives Simmba time to romance the local pretty lass (Sara Ali Khan, whose role does not require her to do much) who runs a catering business across from the police station. If the movie starts out with five stars as a rating, then the pointlessness of the romantic thread (especially the teenagerish jealous streak Simmba shows when her best friend shows up) will lose the film one star. It's funny only because Ranveer Singh makes the funny bits really funny. Anyone else would have been slapped several times. And yes, the 'feeling shy' bit was unexpected and adorable.


The turning point comes too late in the life of corrupt and cocky Simmba. By now you want to slap that girl who bravely ventures into the drug den armed only with a phone. The inevitable happens to Akruti and you actually feel like jumping into the screen and waking up the drunken sleeping gorgeousness that is Simmba so he can save the girl. The drunken scene with Ashutosh Rana - who plays the upright cop Mohile - is fabulous. This brings us to the prolonged hospital scene that makes you want to weep with frustration and cut off another half star. So now this three and a half star film begins to limp to the conclusion. Thank goodness Ranveer Singh can play angry cop really well. I love the breaking furniture scene with bodies of baddies and put my fingers into me mouth to whistle at the uniform hanging in Ranveer's office. Yay! The avenging hero emerges!


Gone are the silly (but funny) dialog, and now it is turn for the throw cash at the screen dialog. But not before you have torn your hair out at the very long pity party scene where everyone wants to kill the rapists but profess their helplessness. You understand why it is long, but you wish everyone would just nod to 'kill the rapists' together instead of saying it individually. It's painful to chop another half star but the superb dialog Simmba throws at the snarling Sonu Sood restrained by a swarm of cops earns it back. Ranveer's revenge story is complete, but not over for Sonu Sood.


In a horrible Korean TV show style torture scene, we now wait for the predictable but oh-so-enjoyable 'boss fight'. Ajay Devgn's Singham shows up to rescue Simmba, and the two beat up all the baddies. The Rohit Shetty Khaki Avengers Universe gets another character and the theatre erupts in whoops and whistles.


So what happens to the last half star? It gets knocked off because the inane songs are used as transition from one situation to another. It gets knocked off because bribing the little mute lad's dad is a cheap plot trick to get rid of a witness. It also gets knocked off because they had to show Akruti's ghost smiling at the camera once the revenge is done.


But the film truly belongs to Ranveer Singh and Ranveer Singh only. He's brilliant and funny, and super buff. Plus he has great legs. Book your tickets now, and don't forget to take your sunglasses!

Manisha Lakhe

   

MOVIE REVIEWS