Release date: 21st June 2019

Cast: Shahid kapoor, Kiara advani

Director: Sandeep Reddy Vanga

Run time: 2hrs 52mins

Rating: 4.8/5

Kabir Singh(a living it like it is Shahid Kapoor) a post graduate Medical student from Delhi Institute of Medical Sciences revels in excess. In an inter-collegiate football match, he prefers to use his fists rather than foot, to prove a point to his opponents. The opponent is left shell-hocked and bloodied and vows revenge. Cut to a scene where a fresh batch of MBBS entrants are being ragged by their seniors. Peachy punjaban Preeti Sikka (a demure tongue-tied Kiara Advani) catches Kabir’s eye and he instantly lays claim to her as his possession. Preeti has nothing to say and even her anxious father is shown seeking Kabir’s father’s (Suresh Oberoi) help in saving his daughter’s blushes from that of heartless raggers. Little does he know that he has served his daughter up as fresh meat for the lion in his very den. It’s a classic Stockholm syndrome set-up where the captive falls for her captor. Can this be called love?

For most of the narrative we see his parents condone his extreme behaviour, his college Dean(Adil Hussain) and associated staffers pat him on the back rather than rusticate him from the Institute, his older brother Karan(Arjan Bajwa) look on his excesses with a ‘Men will be men’ benevolence, his nursing assistants pander to his every whim, and his best friend Shiva(Soham Majumdar) sacrifice his own career ambitions to lend him the incessant back-up support needed to keep this abusive addict and bully out of the crosshairs of justified retribution. The message being sent down is that if you are a meritorious top-ranking student then everything else, character flaws, criminality et al can be overlooked. In fact, it takes more than three-fourths of the trying, energy sapping runtime to provoke a conscience within Kabir and make him willingly surrender to the consequences of his actions. But by then it’s already too late for the unreasonable film and its shell-shocked audience.