When Animal gives you a runtime of 3 hours 10 minutes, it means 3 hours 10 ten minutes. Don’t even bother getting up when the credits roll… the flick doesn’t have mid-credits scenes, it has mid-credit storylines. And then it has more… and if the screen goes black with the last credit, sit your butt down because we’re still not over.

The actual film? It’s about a materialistic, brutal son of a steel magnate in India and his crime, revenge, violence, crosses, double-crosses, and soap opera personal life. Not even sure where I’d start at explaining everything that goes down… partially because I’m not always sure myself.

I found certain plot and character motivations confusing. That’s due in part to unfamiliarity with these actors, partly due to the subtitles sometimes vanishing before I could finish them, maybe some cultural things, and a plot that doesn’t adhere to a timeline of events.

Yeah, this movie ignores a straight narrative flow. It was confusing but, for the most part, the film explains itself as it reveals its plot. That said, I wound up unsure of events, characters, and timelines by the end of the film. You’d think that’d be enough to hate the movie, but I didn’t. While I was sometimes confused, I was usually also engaged.

The married couple at the center of the film are pretty great. While you could argue it goes a little too hard on the romance and interactions, I found them interesting, even if I was uncertain why the film was spending so much time on them. But some of their scenes were the best acting in a movie all year.

I have limited experience with three hour Indian epics but this one felt different to me. It’s not a silly romantic comedy, a musical, or a blow-you-out-of-your socks over-the-top action movie… nor even any combination of the three. It didn’t even have a big musical number. But it is a very dramatic – maybe overly dramatic – corporate warfare thriller with a few hardcore action scenes. There’s also a surprising amount of bloody violence, four letter words (in English and, presumably, in Telugu), and an eyebrow-raising amount of intimacy and frank dialog about sex and anatomy.

This is a good if slightly confounding film. But I enjoyed it even if it was very long, kind of convoluted, and a little over-the-top.

Score: 77