Bloody Daddy movie review: Shahid Kapoor-starrer has all the ingredients of a pacey thriller but despite the occasional burst, it slumps back into a been-there-seen-this category.
More than anything else, an actioner unfolding over 24 hours needs to gallop along at break-neck speed. Bloody Daddy, a remake of the French language Nuit Blanche, which in turn was adapted in Tamil as ‘Thoonga Vanam’ starring Kamal Hasan, has all the ingredients of a pacey thriller. But, despite the occasional burst, it slumps back into a been-there-seen-this category, and that’s got a lot to do with its run-time of over two hours, flattening a plot that isn’t as unpredictable as it thinks it is.
At stake is a bag of cocaine worth Rs 50 crore, and a bunch of cops and crooks are after it, chasing each other through Delhi and Gurugram. The film makes it a point to tell us that it is set after the second phase of the pandemic, when things had started opening up. After months of forced abstinence, people want to get back to partying hard, and that, of course, translates into a surge in demand for drugs. The suspense of not knowing which cop is a crook takes the film only that far, because all the signs are visible from the beginning, when an early morning shoot-out leaves two drug runners dead, and the two people who recover the bag, on the run.
So who amongst the narcotics cops are working for the bad guys? Could it be Sumair (Shahid Kapoor), who acquires a bullet wound within the opening five minutes, and nurses it through the film, as he plays buddy with his young son who is, of course, going to be used as bait in short order? Or Samir (Rajeev Khandelwal) who keeps getting mysterious calls on his phone? Or Aditi (Diana Penty) who ricochets between the two, trying to be tough and on-point?
There’s no such confusion with those working on the other side of the law. There’s Ronit Roy, flaunting a scarlet designer jacket, lording it in his den conveniently located in his own ‘seven star hotel’. And Sanjay Kapoor, in matching red glares, accompanied by a right-hand man who aces both the sniff-and-tell and loyalty test. Other assorted goons periodically march through the hotel, where a big-ticket wedding is taking place, and where the guests are waiting for the singer Badshah to take the festivities a notch higher.
It is we, the viewers, who are left waiting for the excitement to ratchet up, as Sumair-Shahid, sporting a spiffy hair cut, and alternating between a leather jacket and a formal black suit, goes through his paces. The few moments where Shahid appears vulnerable and in pain stand out, and Roy gets some scenes he makes his own. A couple of running jokes – the young lad’s insistence on ‘lactose-free milk’ and ‘gluten-free bread’ causes mild amused horror among his daddy and the mobsters alike — raise their head and then lie back. Just like the film.
