'Malang' review: Anil Kapoor, Kunal Kemmu bring enough highs to keep you engaged

Two hedonistic hippies, whose idea of freedom includes jumping into the sea from a cliff in Goa and getting high on stimulating drugs at rave parties, find their joy cut short in ‘Malang’.

A perfectly buffed and bronzed Aditya Roy Kapur and Disha Patani are on call to play these superlatively gorgeous drifters, Advait Thakur and Sara, in sun-kissed Goa. They want to escape the daily drudgery called life and are on a pleasure hunt for utopia in Goa. But their idyllic romance morphs into a bloody revenge saga with Advait embarking on a crazy killing spree.

His targets are the unsuspecting law enforcement officers of Goa.

The pattern of story telling is interesting in this director Mohit Suri’s film. Its linear pattern oscillating between the present-day Christmas Eve and the festive day around five years ago in Goa triggering a series of chain events with the same set of people form the crux of the film.

While you marvel at the fetching lead pair’s perfectly bronzed and toned bodies, it’s the rogue cops Anil Kapoor as Agashe and Kunal Kemmu as the self-righteous, law-abiding police officer Michael that had our hearts. These two have some of the best scenes in the film and don’t disappoint.

Kemmu as the slick, but vaguely slimy police officer is a revelation in this film. He brings different shades to moral ambiguity and bankruptcy. Meanwhile, Kapoor’s role as a cocaine-snorting cop who makes police brutality look stylish and desirable seems to be having fun in his latest role. He approaches his role with the right amount of wry humour and darkness.

While the story moves at a rapid pace, there are many twists that demand that you suspend belief and stop looking for logic.

Kapur who has this propensity to display brute strength during his revenge killings looks the part as a vagrant backpacker going through existentialist crisis. Patani, who falters in the emotionally-charged sequences, play his perfect gleaming foil. Their romance may seem too syrupy, but it is palatable.

The action sequences and the pace of the film is rapid and packs a punch. While the movie glorifies substance addiction and shirks from showing the underbelly of narcotics trade, it does well on mixing things up. There’s good looking people indulging in questionable acts from the word go.

Just like the wanderers who throng Goa, there’s some vicarious fun to be had in Malang as it takes you into the colourful lives o a bunch of fractured souls aiming for nirvana.

There are enough highs to keep you engaged.