Toxic Review: Yash's Film Has Shades Of KGF, But Falls Short Of A Hollywood-Style Gangster Epic

Rocking star Yash is back on the big screen after a gap of four years with Toxic: A Fairytale for Grown-ups. His last film, KGF: Chapter 2, released in 2022 and went on to amass a whopping Rs 1250 crore reportedly at the box office. Yash was no longer a Kannada star but an Indian star with a global fan following. He took his time to follow up with another film but now he's back with the Geetu Mohandas directorial, Toxic, a massive gangster drama made on a reported budget of more than Rs 500 crore.

When Mellisa (Rukmini Vasanth) angrily goes to meet Raya (Yash) seeking revenge, she threatens to blow him up along with her, thanks to a body-strapped bomb. However, Raya is remarkably unfazed as he has faced death numerous times and survived it. He just looks stonily at her and says, "We have two mins to die; I'll make this time unforgettable for you in bed."

Clearly, this is a gangster drama that's far from run-of-the-mill. The period movie is set for the most part in 1940s Goa where we see Raya and his elder sister Ganga (Nayanthara) being part of a big criminal network. The siblings are in the opium business with Salvador (Darrell D'Silva), a powerful man in the world of crime who adds another layer of danger to their already dark and murky world. Raya, who eventually marries Salvador's daughter Rebecca, is not your conventional gangster though. He is a man hardened by his past and every interaction is shaped by the wounds he carries.

In his life, women shape his worldview thanks to his mother, and in many ways, also his understanding of love, loyalty and betrayal. Other than Ganga whom he holds in high esteem and is inseparable from, the women in his life are mainly there to serve his lust and base desires. In fact, his wife Rebecca (Tara Sutaria), his mistress Nadia (Kiara Advani) and later his girlfriend Mellisa (Rukmini Vasanth) are all attracted to his unabashed toxic masculinity. There is something magnetic about his arrogance, aggressive and unapologetic approach towards women, which they are mesmerised by. But one woman who eyes him with contempt is Salvador's girlfriend Elizabeth (Huma Qureshi) who tries her best to destroy him.

Raya is a deeply flawed man and it shows not just in his attitude towards them but also in his cringe, overtly sexual dialogues. Sample another take from Raya when he tells Mellisa, 'If I need to get over the hangover of a woman, I'll go to another woman. There's no need for morality.' His words and actions are extremely provocative and it shows that he's a gun-toting chain-smoker who has no interest in conforming to the norm in any aspect of life.

Toxic: A Fairytale for Grown-ups works largely because of Yash and the strong roles that the women in the film - Nayanthara, Kiara Advani, Tara Sutaria, Huma Qureshi and Rukmini Vasanth - have been empowered with. These actresses play characters with agency that add depth to Raya's world and propel the story forward.

Having said that, the story and screenplay of the film are not compelling as its characters. The story is a regular gangster drama where we see brutally orphaned siblings take on the world and try to establish themselves in a ruthless criminal world. And the themes of family, power, masculinity, desire, betrayal and redemption have been woven into the screenplay but unfortunately, it's not coherent and seamless. Some portions hold your attention like the circus artist Nadia's love story, while others especially numerous fight sequences feel stretched and fail to maintain an engaging momentum.

Right from the get-go, every attempt has been made to make Yash larger-than-life as Raya and to elevate every single scene of his with a high-energy BGM and superbly stylised visuals.

Toxic rarely lets us forget that we are watching a pan-Indian star and Yash's swagger and attitude on screen have been amplified by the staging, music and visuals. The movie sees action sequences with Raya followed by highly sensual scenes and this is a pattern that is followed religiously through the film. One feels the only thing that drives this haunted, angry man is violence and sex - one begins to wonder whether Raya's world has been made to be deliberately primal and driven by his basest instincts.

What sets director Geetu Mohandas' Toxic apart though is the treatment of the gangster drama. She has chosen to present it as a highly stylised and visually appealing world of violence, power, love, family, betrayal and revenge. The production values are lavish right from the massive sets to the luxurious costumes and striking visuals making Toxic a cinematic spectacle for the Indian audience. There are clear influences as well of Moulin Rouge, Cirque du Soleil, Joker and The Revenant, that we spot through the film. However, credit must be given to Geetu Mohandas for attempting to mount this big project and trying to make it a superstar project worthy of Yash. The story has been written by both Yash and Geetu Mohandas and this is where the film is a let-down as it seems to have focused more on style than on the story.

Yash has a formidable screen presence and he is the driving force of Toxic. Raya is toxic and morally corrupt but he is not dull. And for his son Ticket (Yash) there is no black and white but rules he simply makes up as he goes along. Yash plays the dual roles convincingly with superb ease and puts his unique stamp on both of them. As for the ladies in the film, all of them - Nayanthara, Kiara Advani, Tara Sutaria, Huma Qureshi and Rukmini Vasanth - have unanimously excelled in their roles. Each one of them makes a strong impact on screen and this shows their talent and how invested they have been in this film as well.

Technically, the film is excellent as noted earlier. The music and BGM by Ravi Basrur stand out, as does the cinematography by Rajeev Ravi. The editing by Ujwal Kulkarni could have been better as some scenes just jump from one to the other and some scenes could have been trimmed down to reduce the long running time (194 minutes).

Toxic is not the gangster Hollywood-style epic one expected (it has some shades of KGF) but it's an ambitious effort undertaken by Yash and Geetu Mohandas to give the Indian audience a unique experiment and it delivers on that for the most part.