Ek Villain


Ek Villain is an Indian 2014 Hindi-language action thriller film directed by Mohit Suri and produced by Balaji Motion Pictures. The story is written by Milap Zaveri and Tushar Hiranandani. It stars Sidharth Malhotra, Shraddha Kapoor and Riteish Deshmukh, and is about a hardened criminal whose terminally ill wife is murdered by a sadistic serial killer.
Ek Villain is alleged to be an unofficial remake of the 2010 film I Saw the Devil though the director, Suri, has refuted this. It marked the first time Deshmukh portrayed a negative role. It was released worldwide on 27 June 2014 and received positive reviews from critics, garnering praise for the theme, direction, screenplay and performances. Made on a budget of million, the film became a major box-office success with earnings of over billion domestically and a worldwide gross of billion.

Plot

Aisha Verma calls her husband, panicking, as there is a mysterious man trying to kill her. Her husband is unable to reach in time and the killer murders her with a screwdriver and tosses her out of the window. At her funeral, CBI officer Aditya points out that it is vital to track down the murderer or else Guru Divekar, Aisha's husband, will go on a killing spree. Guru's past is shown in flashbacks. He used to be a ruthless hitman working for mob boss Caeser, who raised and trained him so that Guru could have a chance to murder the goons who killed his parents. Guru is arrested for killing a young man, Debu, but gets bailed, as Debu's mother, a witness, refuses to testify against him. She warns Guru that she did not testify because one day, God will make him pay for his crimes and he will also lose a loved one.
Guru meets Aisha, an optimistic girl dying from a terminal illness. She seeks his help to save "chotu" an old age man from a mental asylum. Guru saves him with Aisha and he tooks part in chotu's wedding with Sheela. Aisha's diary, which depicts her wishes is fallen on the mandap and Guru gets that. His friend explains the wishes to them as they were in English. At last he finds his photo as a goon with a title of "to save a life". Enrage, Guru reaches to Aisha. But there he witnesses that Sheela is already dead. When he sees that Aisha was taking the photo of funereal, he becomes angry and lashes out at her, asking that why is she doing this? is it just to build a sympathetic good image of her to others. With a smile full of pain, she explains Guru that the wishes in the diary is her last wishes, as she is suffering from terminal ilnness. He decides to help her complete her bucket list before she dies. They fall in love and get married. Guru leaves behind his old life and gets a job while Aisha receives treatment in Mumbai and recovers. She discovers she is pregnant and decides to tell Guru in person as he is returning from his interview, but is murdered before she can. In a parallel story, Rakesh Mahadkar is an unsuccessful and henpecked man who is constantly ridiculed by his wife Sulochana for his shortcomings, though he still loves her. He vents out his frustration by murdering other women who speak rudely to him like his wife, and Aisha turns out to be one of them.
In present day, Guru finally hunts down Rakesh and brutally beats him, then admits him to a hospital and pays for the expenses, intending to return and keep beating him. At the hospital, Guru learns that Aisha was pregnant, which breaks him even more. While assaulting a nurse, Rakesh is again intercepted by Guru, who kills him, then revives him with an intracardiac injection and sets him free. Meanwhile, the police finds out about Rakesh and take his wife for questioning. Rakesh realizes that Guru is Aisha's husband and is taking revenge.
Rakesh taunts Guru over the phone before killing Aisha's father. He expects Guru to kill him so that he'll become a "hero" in the eyes of his wife and everyone else while Guru will become the "villain". However, Caesar calls Guru and says that he has killed Rakesh's wife but left his little son for Guru to kill. Enraged, Rakesh fights Guru but is run over by a car and dies before he can kill him. Guru adopts Rakesh's son instead of killing him and completes the remaining wishes on Aisha's bucket list.

Cast

Development

Ekta Kapoor signed Mohit Suri to direct a romantic thriller. Ek Villain was earlier reported to be a remake of the Korean film I Saw the Devil, though Suri, the director, refuted the claim. Suri stated that every character in the film would have grey shades.

Marketing and promotions

The Central Board of Film Certification cleared the film with a U/A certificate after a total of eight cuts designed to tone down the action sequences and mute a particular word. Tanuj Garg, representative of Balaji Motion Pictures stated the cuts were less than a minute of screen time.
The movie's official teaser which was released on 4 April 2014 with the film Main Tera Hero, got 1 million views on YouTube within three days of release. The official trailer of 2 minutes 18 secs was launched later and was well received by critics, as well as garnered praise from around the industry including Karan Johar, Ranbir Kapoor, Katrina Kaif among others.
Sidharth Malhotra, Shraddha Kapoor, Riteish Deshmukh, Mohit Suri and the film's music directors attended a musical event in Mumbai to promote the soundtrack of the film. Further, Malhotra and Kapoor promoted the movie at the IPL semi finals as well as on reality shows like Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa. Promotion campaigns were also organized across the country in cities like Jaipur, Kolkata and Delhi. As a part of the promotional strategy, a television show based on Bollywood villains was hosted by Malhotra.

Soundtrack

The songs are composed by Mithoon, Ankit Tiwari and the band Soch. The lyrics are written by Manoj Muntashir, Mithoon and members of Soch. The album consists of six songs with Tiwari composing "Galliyan", Mithoon composing "Zaroorat", "Humdard" and "Banjaara" while the remaining track "Awari" is composed by Soch.
The film score was composed by Raju Singh.

Reception

Mohar Basu of Koimoi gave the album 4/5 stars and wrote, "Mohit Suri’s taste for melody cannot be doubted as the filmmaker uses an album that is fine blend of ballads and rock, infusing the right octave of harmony is every single song. In a long time there hasn’t come an album which has such perfectly pitched songs, each of them a winner. Music Directors get all the credit for creating a wholesome album like this." Rediff also awarded the album 4 out of 5 stars and noted, "The music of Ek Villain meets the high expectations that one had from it. Mohit Suri maintains his record of coming up with memorable music for each of his films." Filmfare wrote, "All-in-all, The OST of Ek Villain is another winner for Mohit Suri who has a knack for bringing out the best in his music directors. Go for it if you like soulful romantic tracks with loads of fusion thrown in."

Release

Ek Villain was released theatrically on 27 June 2014, in 2539 screens in the domestic market.

Critical reception

Ek Villain received positive reviews from critics with praise for the performances of Malhotra and Deshmukh.
Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama awarded the movie 4/5 stars and wrote that, "On the whole, Ek Villain is a stylish, spellbinding and terrifying edge-of-the-seat thriller. It's a step forward in this genre, without doubt. A sure-shot winner!" Raedita Tandon from Filmfare gave the film 4/5 stars and stated that, "Though indulgent in parts, Ek Villain packs in a punch. Copy of a Korean film or not, it’s 'good' paisa vasool entertainment.." Meena Iyer of The Times of India gave the film 3 stars in a scale of 5, stating that "You cannot fault the scale of Ek Villain or berate its lead star cast. But you wish you could celebrate this thriller like you did Suri's last movie outing Aashiqui 2. This one lacks soul."
Aparna Mudi of Zee News gave the film a rating of 2.5/5 stars, concluding her review that "The unveiling of the visceral saga has a lot of strong characters and Mohit has done a good job in adapting a foreign film and complementing it with the drama that the Indian audience is used to. But he has gone a tad over in making a thriller. Maybe, filmmakers should step out of this trap more often and we wouldn`t be too far from making beacons of world cinema." Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN stated that "I'm going with two-and-a-half out of five for 'Ek Villain'. If you're still wondering, the real villain here is the lousy script".
Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express gave the film 2 stars, commenting that "Suri is an innate story-teller, and can keep things moving. All he needs is a strong, all-the-way credible, original plot." Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV rated the film 2/5 and wrote that "As a whole, this film, besides its surface flair, does not have too much to fall back upon. Watch it only if that is good enough for you." Raja Sen of Rediff gave the film 1.5 stars out of 5, stating that "Given free tickets, sure, you could escape Humshakals in theatres this weekend with this mediocre effort, but I say do yourself a favour and seek out the Korean DVD. Now that’s bloody special."

Box office

Ek Villain had what Box Office India called "very good" opening, with occupancies at around 55–60%. The film earned around in its first day and around in its first weekend, collecting around and in its second and third days respectively. The film collected around in its fourth day and around in its fifth day. The film collected in two weeks and around in three weeks. Box Office India reported that it will earn around in India alone. The film earned a distributor share of around.
Ek Villain collected outside India in its first weekend.

Sequel

A sequel titled Ek Villain 2 was announced on 30 January 2020 with Ekta Kapoor and Bhushan Kumar as producers, Mohit Suri as director again and release date to be 8 January 2021. It will show a face off between two villains played by Aditya Roy Kapur
and John Abraham while Disha Patani and Tara Sutaria play female leads. The filming will begin in June 2020.

Awards and nominations