Bloody Daddy is just about passable

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With some remakes, I just cannot fathom the reason to rework it in another language. Sleepless Night (or Nuit Blanche, to give its original French title) is perhaps one such. At best, the Hindi version, at least, is just a passable thriller, despite the massive resources spent on action, production design, camerawork and VFX et al. An OTT release, of course, ensures a definite minimum audience and returns, but at the end of the day, Bloody Daddy is just that bit better than, say, Kartik Aaryan’s OTT release, Freddy.

Shahid Kapoor plays Sumair Azad, an undercover cop who is aware of a senior, Sameer Singh (Rajeev Khandelwal) and a junior, Jaggi (Zeeshan Quadri) in his department who are in cahoots with a drug mafia. Sumair organizes an attack on a pair of cogs in the drug mafia wheel deliberately to also rob a bit from the consignment. They seize about 50 crore (Rs. 5 billion) worth of cocaine. But hotelier and drug lord Sikandar Chowdhary (Ronit Roy) kidnaps Sumair’s son, Atharva (Sartaaj Kakkar) and asks for the bag. Sumair, who is set to be divorced from his wife, Riya (Suparna Moitra), decides to return the consignment to Sikandar, but to ensure that his son is safe, hides the bag in the hotel washroom before he delivers it.

However, things go wrong as Sameer and his deputy cop, Aditi (Diana Penty) are after Sumair as Jaggi has tipped off Sumair. Worse, the consignment is actually to be given to Hameed (Sanjay Kapoor), who turns up at the appointed time and blames Sikandar for the delay.

After this, it is all one bloodied saga of moves and countermoves as a desperate father, Sumair, tries to escape with his son and everyone else too has their own axes to grind.

Ali Abbas Zafar, who had earlier shown his mettle at assorted genres like Mere Brother Ki Dulhan, Gunday, Sultan and Tiger Zinda Hai, had slipped more than a shade with Bharat, the web series Tandav and the over-hyped Jogi. There is little trace of the director of his first four diverse yet masterful films here. The absurdities are just reveled in, whether it is Sumair’s bullet injury, or the number of massive blows and traumas that Sumair and Sameer inflict upon each other and still survive easily and fight and run.

Shahid Kapoor is intense and sincere, and I rather liked Ronit Roy’s cool demeanor and Diana Penty’s small but crucial turn. The rest of the cast is just average, including the earnest Sartaaj Khattar as Sumair’s son Atharv. Making a small mark is the young actor who plays the bartender.

The film finally comes off as a vehicle that does not understand its own genre: twisted thriller, dark comedy caper, intense action drama or quirky entertainer. It muddles up everything into a rather repetitious cocktail of action that fails to excite or leave any mark or impact.

Rating: **1/2

Jio Studios, AAZ Films & Offside Entertainment presents Bloody Daddy  Produced by: Jyoti Deshpande, Sunir Khetarpal, Gaurav Bose, Himanshu Kishan Mehra, Ali Abbas Zafar & Sushil Choudhary  Directed by: Ali Abbas Zafar Written by: Ali Abbas Zafar  Written by: Frederic Jordin, Ali Abbas Zafar, Aditya Basu & Siddharth–Garima  Music: Badshah, Anuj Garg, Aditya Dev & Julius Packiam  Starring: Shahid Kapoor, Diana Penty, Sanjay Kapoor, Ronit Roy, Ankur Bhatia, Vivan Bhathena, Zeishan Quadri, Suparna Moitra, Vikram Mehra, Sartaaj Kakkar, Veto Swarn, Rais Baluch, Saurabh Chauhan, Sachin Verma, Mukesh J. Bhatt & others