Parthi: Main Leo nahi hu. Everyone: Tu hai, tujhe pata nahi hai par tu hai.
This will be a spoiler review. Please avoid if you haven’t seen the film yet. You can skip to the last para to know if it is worth going to the theatre.
The Opening – Setting Up Leo
The film starts with a murder. Why not, it’s a film about criminals and the universe is set around drugs.
Vijay’s character is named Partiban, who is an animal rescuer and cafe owner living with his family in the hills. A spotted Hyena terrorizes the town, when he is called by his friend who is a forest ranger, to help him hunt down the animal. This entire sequence is designed very well and gives a perfect introduction to our hero and his mindset. He wants to capture the hyena, and not kill him. A small part also tells us that his son is well trained, which we get to know later.
After the event he just slips into an alley to avoid any media or praise or discussion. Again this indicates how he avoids all this and has chosen to live a quiet, simple life. It is here when we get to see the title but the surprise element for me was the BGM of ‘Master.’ Boy, I had a big smile on my face.
The Action
The action is one of the major highlights of the film and each scene is designed in a different way. The
cafe scene is the first time we see Parthiban in action, we all saw it coming. Then there is a point where he loses it and decides to go for the kill to save his daughter. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!! 5 headshots in a row! The consequent scenes with police, lawyer and judge are quite funny.
The second great action scene is in the market. Here the number of goons are more and the a lot of props from the surroundings are used. Here Parthi is not holding back. He is angry, frustrated, and he is not holding back. He is going for the kill. As I said, the action set is designed differently, from ideation till execution, you can see the team has put the effort.
The one action sequence that blew my mind straight up was the one where Leo is fighting in the tobacco factory to save his sister. I don’t know if you know but while shooting a scene there is a thing called blocking. Basically location par ane ke baad decide karte hain ki kaunsa actor kaha se ayega, kaha khada hoga, kaha par camera hoga, kaha pan karega kaha move karega, etc. Ek bahaut lamba sequence ahi jo drone se shoot kiya hai. It is so perfectly done that you just cant stop loving it. Ek bar soch ke dekho kitni bar practice karni padi hogi from scratch sochna kitna mushkil hoga. But that’s Lokesh Kanagaraj for you.
I keep telling people to know more about filmmaking than discuss collections because if you know the process, you can enjoy things even more and have more respect towards the efforts. At the same time you can identify who has not put any efforts, like the makers of Ganapath, about which I’ll explain in my next review.
Acting
Vijay steals the show. Now at the story for a moment. Parthi is a retired man who is not doing any physical work such as fight or training. He is bulky, he is slow. His eyes are calm, demeanour like a common man. So even when he walks, or fights, he is a different man. Come to Leo, he is young, he is agile and so he fights like a cheetah. His attitude is different, both in how he thinks and behaves. They took care of this and showed it splendidly.
In every emotional scene as Parthi, Vijay nails it. He does not want to fight. He is full of frustration, but he knows what he needs to do. Vijay is able to translate his emotions to the audience and we can feel what the character is feeling. Now that is brilliant acting. He gave his 100%.
As for the other characters, they were decent. I think the writing did not support them to show for much. Trisha was nice in all of her scenes and so was the forest officer. Both the antagonists, Sanjay Dutt and Arjun Sarja had great screen presence but had little to do in terms of acting as there were no scenes written for them which allowed them to do more that just a typical villain.
Writing
Now here comes the real villain of the film. I was blown away how Vikram was written, both as story and screenplay. Kaithi hit me differently due to the concept. But Leo was not even close to them. First half was on point. It was the backstory that failed miserably. ek baap apne baccho ki bali deta hai business badhane ke liye? Oh come ‘on! Okay, I can get that in fiction we can have the liberty to get creative but this was not that kind of story where this fits. Kaithi, Vikram ke baad toh bilkul nahi.
And baad mein Antony aur Halord ka aim kya tha? Dono bol rahe the accept karle accept karle tu hi Leo hai. And then what? What was the end goal? Yes, there was a brief mention that they wanted Leo to come back and rebuild the empire. But after all that happened (Antony Das killed Leo, Harold Das killed Elisa), you need more than one dialogue toshowcase that. For Parthiban, Leo was the villain whom he killed and buried. But we do not get to see why he was the worse of them all? It was only in dialogue. If this was portrayed in a better manner, the story would have made more impact.
Stakes high hote hain, proper reasons hote hain hero aur villain ke toh story acchi lagta hai. Leo had his reasons, stakes were high for him. but the villains were poorly written. They were just not connecting.
Direction
I felt the direction too was a hit and miss. Most of the negatives can be attributed to writing. Lokesh gave great thoguh to each action scene which I loved. There are a few long shots/one takes which feel good. One of them is after the hyena scene when he enters the cafe. His teamwork with the DOP is just phenomenal. How the camera moves, how the shots are taken, how they are edited, how the sound has been designed, Lokesh takes care of all these things and that is one skill of the director people skip while discussing/praising them. You have the best of people from all departments but it is the director who is the thread that binds all of them seamlessly.
Some of the scenes I felt could have been better were Parthiban’s part with his family. Could have been done with a different energy, or edited a little better. Because the screenplay dipped almost every time. I could understand the reason for the reason to be there but they could have been executed better. Because family emotions were there in Kaithi and Vikram as well but I won’t call them dull moments.
VFX
The Hyena – they spend ₹10-15 Cr for the Hyena CGI and they did a pretty good job. Check out some VFX videos to understand how animals are created and what’s the difference between a good CGI animal and a not so good one. For the Hyena, the muscular movements were decent, the fur and shape were the best part and the mouth was the one thing I did not like. I said this in the trailer review as well. Maybe it was the choice of red color or something but it looked off.
The hyena returning in the end was a very nice touch. He was a hero. We cheered for him. Was not expecting that. Good writing.
The Car Chase – pretty sure you would have noticed this too. The camera angles were good in the chase sequence but he car topple and blasts looked bizzare. Trailer se hi clear tha wo toh.
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The blood and chopping of body parts were good. Kahi toh CBFC ne kuch dikhaya, warna sab kaat dete hain. Animal ka kya hoga bhagwan.. bacha lena bas.
Dubbing
Dear Krushna Abhishek, we love love you. You are so great when it comes to comedy. Whether it was Comedy Circus or The Kapil Sharma Show, we love what you do. You were great in films like Entertainment and Bol Bachchan as well. But please stay away from dubbing. Nahi jam raha matlab nahi jam raha. Vijay’s voice was a big let down in Hindi.
Kuch scenes toh shayad isi liye pasand nahi aye honge ki voice mein emotion hi nahi convey ho raha tha. At least 50% of the time, the voice was not matching the facial expressions. The writing too was weak. Felt like word-to-word translation most of the time. Badi filmo mein paisa mat bachaya karo yar. Na hi celebs ke liye jaya karo. We have great dubbing artists, stick to them, they know this job better.
Songs
Again, Hindi versions were not that good. Naa Ready toh bilkul hi bekar lagta hai, original is so good. Anbenum was decent. Badass was the best, jo hindi mein bhi sahi lag raha tha. Loki used a few English songs in background which were fine. A few Hindi songs too which I thought were not so good. Could have chosen better songs. Just my thought, here everyone can have their own choices.
LCU references
Hawaldar Napolean from Kaithi had a good role. Bhai kya duty karta hai, jaan pe khel ke. Kaithi mein bhi aur Leo mein bhi. Ab izzat se retire karega, lol. There was mention of Dilli and the drug bust. No reference to Rolex. The prostitute from Vikram was unexpected, samajh nahi aa rha tah wo waha kyu hai, until the end. End mein Kamal Haasan ki sirf voice ati hai Vikram ka face dikhate nahi hain. Drug related koi aur bada connection nahi tha. Toh thoda forced bhi laga. Thoda organically kar sakte the connection. Last mein Lokiverse 2.0 music ata hai credits ke time wo accha lagta hai. Koi reference miss kiya ho toh batana.
Verdict
So despite of all the lows that the film carries, I had a good time watching it. I would rank Vikram>Kaithi>Leo. You may feel otherwise and it’s fine. I don’t give stars, I would love to hear different point of views so you can come to the instagram page where I’m most active. As some people are asking if they should go to the theatre to watch or not, I would say, if you are a fan of LCU, then please go. You will have a good time. If you are just a casual watcher, you can wait for 4 week, it will be on Netflix.
Also check out Leo Phone Wallpapers here
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