Toxic Movie Review: Stylistically exuberant, massy, atmospheric, action-packed and deliciously macabre, Toxic, Geetu Mohandas’ multi-starrer with Yash at the helm, takes its own sweet time to pull you into its gritty and shadow-slicked world. But once it does, it leaves you hooked, line and sinker, to a story that is not only unique but also unafraid of scraping deep into the moral greys of its people, excavating their psyche, wounds, hunger and motives. Backed by a stellar slew of female faces, including Nayanthara, Huma Qureshi, Kiara Advani and Tara Sutaria, the film gradually reveals why it has been dubbed “a fairy tale for grown-ups.” Yes, it does suffer from flaws that are too glaring to be politely ignored, but compared to the scale on which it has been mounted and the sweep of its overarching plot, one can still overlook much of the turbulence. So, is it worth the watch? Let’s find out.
Set in post-1947 Goa, when the rest of India had become independent but Goa still remained under the Portuguese, the film follows Raya, played by Yash, and his sister Ganga, played by Nayanthara. The two have risen together from the darkest, most tenebrous pits of their childhood. Ganga has mentored, raised and moulded Raya in the furnace of their afflictions and misfortunes, and she wants nothing less than Goa for him. Like Chanakya, she guides him, offers words of wisdom every now and then, and helps her brother inch towards his zenith, pushing him to become the Sikandar of their world.
Raya is a man who sports a stylish beard, smokes cigarettes with swagger, has edgy and occasionally metaphorical comebacks, carries a penchant for violence, thrashes enemies with style and panache, and always finds extraordinary ways to make his rivals meet their maker. He is certainly not the usual morally upright protagonist, and that is evident in the way he carries himself. Among his many vices, one that he seems most passionately committed to is women. But he is not the monogamous kind, something he makes very clear when he says, “Ishq aisa karta har ladki ko lagta chaand ussi ke chakkar lagata magar kameene ka dil har bandhan se pare, khula aasmaan tha, azaad.”
