With Shiddat, Kunal Deshmukh returns to the director’s chair after a seven-year hiatus. For those unfamiliar with his work, Deshmukh was one of Vishesh Films’ go-to-guys for making romantic dramas in the late noughties and early 2010s. Some of his movies (Jannat, Jannat 2, Tum Mile) have garnered cult status among fans. He possesses an unrelenting and indestructible philosophy about romance, which 13 years on from Jannat, shows no signs of withering.
An irreverent, obsessive-compulsive lover wrapped in a supposedly cute and affable personality, music for the ages and a well-disguised gut punch in the third act – Shiddat has Deshmukh’s signature all over it.
A fine ensemble cast is tasked with enacting the insipid script for nearly 150 minutes. This time, Deshmukh has given his constant Emraan Hashmi the pass and directs Sunny Kaushal in the lead role. Sunny, the younger and lesser-known of the Kaushal brothers, features as ‘Jaggi’, a rendition of the director’s recurring, problematically perfervid ‘hero’, who invariably confuses obsession for passion. Sunny wholly invests in ‘Jaggi’, embracing his flaws with flair. He disappears into the character, delivering a performance that would make his elder brother extremely proud. Fingers crossed, Shiddat could do for Sunny Kaushal what Taish did for Harshvardhan Rane.
Of the others, Mohit Raina plays a resolute IFS officer. ‘Gautam’ is one-tone and appears to be the result of the film writers excessively snoozing on duty. But, Raina infuses life into ‘Gautam’ with captivating moments. Watch him as he gazes defeatedly at Diana Penty from a distance, while a melancholic ballad plays in the background. Speaking of Penty, she’s mostly making up the numbers here but impresses with the little that is handed to her.
Jaggi’s love interest in the film, ‘Kartika’, played by the effervescent Radhika Madan, is designed to be the reference point, much like all of Deshmukh’s leading ladies. She is shackled by predictability, feigning an emotional evolution that wreaks of glibness. Madan is a gifted actress, and if given the freedom, perhaps could’ve transformed ‘Kartika’ into the conflicted soul she is presumed to be.
Shiddat was likely pitched as a movie depicting the epic battle between realism and romance with a sizable serving of contemporary references thrown in for good measure. Alas, this reincarnation of ‘Arjun Dixit’ and ‘Sonu Dill KKC’ is dated and desperately deserved a much-needed upgrade.
Deshmukh’s obsession with his hero is arguably stronger than the protagonist’s obsession with his love interest in the film. Neither of which is healthy, neither of which is relevant in 2021.
Rating: 2.5/5
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