There are many arguments in support of and against the direct release of films on OTT platforms instead of giving them a run in theaters first. Purists think that since movies have been known to be released on the big screen, that’s where they should be watched. It’s where you get the best picture quality and the best sound. Additionally, if the audience is great, then it automatically improves your viewing experience. But since every theater isn’t in perfect condition and since audiences can be filled with people who talk loudly on the phone or kick the seats, watching a film from the comfort of your home isn’t a bad option. Now, although I’m a “theater first, OTT later” person, ever so often, a film comes along the way that shakes my resolve and forces me to opine that some pieces of “entertainment” shouldn’t even see the light of the day. One such film is Bloody Daddy.
A serviceable rehash of the 2011 French thriller Nuit Blanche, Bloody Daddy has plenty of gore, a significantly high body count and a complement of smartly mounted gunfights and duels. By no stretch of the imagination, however, does this Shahid Kapoor-starrer, written, directed and co-produced by Ali Abbas Zafar, come anywhere near being the daddy of all action flicks.
Bloody Daddy, streaming on JioCinema, is marked by technical gloss that is strictly superficial and does not percolate into the film's heart. When it struggles with the bane of monotony - the smartly staged action sequences come off as too by-the-numbers to be genuinely and thoroughly exhilarating - it trips on its slew of mechanical twists and turns.
Playing a variation on Farzi's defiantly amoral middle-class rebel, the lead actor assumes the persona of another anti-hero who plays the game by his own rules. A divorcee and a father who has much to prove, he revels in living dangerously and, as his ex-wife alleges, irresponsibly.
But on a serious note, Bloody Daddy is as cool as a cucumber. Before you get confused and question its angry-meets-cool quotient, let us tell you that we’re strictly speaking about the execution and the treatment. It will remind you of those slick, stylish and good-looking John Wick films. It looks and sounds international but maybe that’s also because it’s the official adaptation of the 2011 French film, Nuit Blanche. You can’t get over cinematographer Marcin Laskawiec’s lenses romantically waltzing with psychedelic neon lights at a high-profile party at a seven-star hotel in Gurugram, where the main action unfolds. Accompanying this and the stylised fight sequences, paradoxically, is hard-core Punjabi music and a cameo by rapper, Badshah.
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