Kabir Singh: A remake which embarrasses its original.

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‘You’re nothing without me Preethi. In the campus, you were called Kabir Singh’s girlfriend. Do you even have an identity of your own?’

This dialogue just put me off. I wasn’t able to concentrate on the titular character’s arc. Such misogynistic dialogues are what KS is made of.

Arjun Reddy had a demeanour that you would actually respect. Even though he was seen performing questionable activities, he wasn’t bordering on toxic masculinity like KS. Even though it’s a remake, they just disrupted the soul of the original. Towards the end, I was instilled with some hope that the authenticity of the character will be restored (Maybe it was Arijit Singh’s voice in the pre-climax song). Alas, my expectations have been hardly fulfilled.

The movie feels rushed even though it is over 172 minutes long. Even the single shot where Kabir smashes Amit’s nose in his college (Don’t ask me how Kabir entered a different college without an I-card), looked like it was filmed in haste. The build-up to that particular scene isn’t as detailed as seen in AR. The dialogues aren’t registered properly as the movie was shot in the live sync format (The actors don’t have to dub their dialogues. Everything is captured during the filming).  The censor board muting all the swear words adds to the agony!

The music album is one of the best to be released in recent times. Every song is a blockbuster and you never get tired of listening to them. The background score hasn’t been utilised to its fullest. Thanks to the live sync again.

Sandeep Reddy Vanga is a self-proclaimed fan of foreign (Not just Hollywood) films.. Yesteryear hits like, ‘Cheri Cheri Lady’, ‘What a Wonderful World’, ‘Sumanasa Vandita’ were revived and placed at the right situations. Nothing of this sort was done to KS. The songs were randomly picked and shoved into the reel. I’m not comparing these two films but the songs were a bummer even for a fellow North Indian.

Shiva, played by Sohum Majumdar, goes a step too far in this version. He asks Kabir if he is ready to marry his sister. This was such a speed break that the entire theatre went- Tu pagal hai kya saale! Scenes like this are so overdone that you lose connection with the character all at once.

The performances by Shahid Kapoor and Kiara Advani were commendable. Kiara almost outperforms Shahid but jump cuts coming out of nowhere deter the audience from recognising her acting skills.

This isn’t a disaster of a movie as proclaimed by some of the critics. If you feel like you’re mentally clogged after coming out of the theatre, you should probably watch AR and detox yourself.


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