Cheers to Shahid Kapoor’s transition in Bollywood from Chocolaty Boy to Bloody Daddy!
An actioner that takes place over 24 hours must, above all, go at a breakneck pace. Bloody Daddy, a remake of the French film Nuit Blanche, which was adapted in Tamil as ‘Thoonga Vanam’ starring Kamal Hasan, has all the elements of a fast-paced thriller. However, despite the odd surge, it sags back into the been-there-seen-this category, which has a lot to do with its over-two-hour runtime, flattening a plot that isn’t as unexpected as it thinks it is.
Come for Shahid Kapoor, but stay for Ronit Roy, who wears an outlandish velvet suit and declares, “I’m not a bad guy.” “I only sell drugs.” Roy’s kitsch, subsequently mixed with Sanjay Kapoor’s, kept me awake and entertained throughout Bloody Daddy (now available on JioCinema). Ali Abbas Zafar’s film veers between action and comedy while purposefully avoiding the label of “action comedy.” The problem is that the film wants to be taken seriously, even praised as a slickly violent Hindi action offering. I loved the humor — one character is especially amusing because he speaks nearly entirely in English — but taking Bloody Daddy at face value is a tough ask.
Sumair (Shahid Kapoor) and his partner (Zeishan Quadri) stop a car and seize Rs. 50 crore worth of cocaine in post-pandemic Delhi. Sikandar (Roy), a Gurugram tycoon and hotelier, is enraged by their interception. He informs Sumair over the phone that he has kidnapped his son and requests that he return the bag of narcotics in exchange for the boy. Sumair shows up at the Hotel Emerald Etlantis that night. He has a stomach wound to heal and a plan to save his son without returning the medications.
The concept of a lone-wolf father fighting for his child’s release is as old as action films themselves. Bloody Daddy is a remake of the 2011 French thriller Nuit Blanche (Sleepless Night) — Kamal Haasan already adapted it in 2015 as Thoongaa Vanam — but, as the trailer shows, it strives to be a parody of a different franchise: John Wick. Zafar is so eager to borrow the visual grammar of the Keanu Reeves/Chad Stahelski franchise that he overlooks an important fact: Gurugram is not New York. Emerald Etlantis, which is packed with noisy wedding revelers and was actually shot in Abu Dhabi, lacks the Continental Hotel’s threat and mystical. Stranger Still is a scene where Sumair makes a rapid heel turn and breaks into Bhangra to blend in with the throng as he lumbers through strobes of harsh disco light in the style of John Wick.
Sumair craves his own identity as an action hero, and the film tries to provide him with one. I assumed Zafar was deferring the main action set-pieces to the second part of the film to generate tension. In reality, he was only postponing the inevitable. The battle scenes, while becoming progressively savage, lack creativity and invention (2022’s An Action Hero, while largely a spoof of the genre, was a league above).
The concept of realistic action’ in the film is for characters to improvise with common objects. When Sumair battles in a gaming arcade, he uses a striking club; when he fights in a kitchen, he uses a rolling pin and chopping board. This is put to the test in the conclusion, when he miraculously obtains a flamethrower (perhaps to burn out the Badshaah guest track that is playing).
Shahid, who is sprightly, springy, slim, and sharp-jawed, is a better instrument in Zafar’s hands than, say, late-career Salman Khan. Kapoor fights with a nasty streak, despite the fact that his opponents, with the possible exception of Rajeev Khandelwal, are undifferentiated sacks of blood and air. The film’s tendency towards emotion ultimately undermines Kapoor’s performance. Sumair is described as a deadly combatant with a golden heart. When he looks across at his son, the music becomes emotional (even in the middle of an action scenario). He assists two Nepali immigrants with their rent after racially stereotyping them, and a sequence in which he teaches a woman’s aggressive date is like an olive branch handed to Kabir Singh’s enemies.
Sanjay Kapoor, who plays a mafia leader who wears red sunglasses at night as if he has just returned from a 3-D performance, has a lot of fun shouting and cursing at Ronit Roy. Diana Penty plays anti-corruption officer Aditi, the only important (and entirely incidental) female character in the film. There are a few intriguing concepts. The film is shot in the early hours of the morning in Delhi’s Connaught Place, which is not an unusual location for a Hindi film. Other notable locales (Majnu-ka-tilla, Palika Bazaar) are woven into the discussion, eliciting laughter. Sumair is addressed as ‘bro’ by his kid; indeed, they appear more like siblings than a traditional father-son combo.
Throughout the picture, I kept looking for Shanker Raman’s name in the credits; both Gurgaon (2017) and Love Hostel (2022) appear to have had a big effect on this one. Raman’s films are more daring and gritty versions of Haryana noir. It’s a witchy subgenre characterized by wild characters, insane savagery, and pitch-black humor. At best, Bloody Daddy has a one-night stand with this terrain. I can’t imagine settling in.
After all, is said and done, Shahid Kapoor’s journey from Chocolaty Boy to Bloody Daddy in Bollywood is proof of how talented an actor he has become.
Bloody Daddy is currently streaming on JioCinema
Stay tuned to bollywoodhushnews.com for more gossip and news.
