SEX, BLOOD & STAR WORSHIP: Toxic trailer

If you are blessed enough to not have heard about the upcoming film Toxic starring Yash, then I am about to ruin your day. But if you are active on Indian film discourse, you must be aware of the absolute tomfoolery going on twitter regarding this film.

In this article we will discuss all the promotional material of Toxic, including the ladies on ladies teaser, official trailer, cast, set design, budget etc. Once we start dissecting this trailer you will understand why I named the title Sex, Blood & Cinema.

The plot of Toxic: A Fairy Tale for Grown-Ups follows Raya, a ruthless gangster rising through the criminal underworld of Goa. Set between the 1940s and 1970s as Portuguese colonial rule crumbles.

Interesting concept right? Yeah I thought so as well but so far the promotional material plays a very different story. I will explain this point further but so far, the story is new and fresh, there is a lot that can be done with the plot given and hence there is a lot that can go wrong as well.

The Film has an all star cast with some of the biggest names of south Indian and Hindi Cinema.

• Yash: Raya

• Nayanthara: Ganga

• Kiara Advani: Nadia

• Huma Qureshi: Elizabeth

• Rukmini Vasanth: Mellisa

• Tara Sutaria: Rebecca

• Akshay Oberoi: Tony

• Sudev Nair: Karmadi

Yash is the main lead, co- writer, and producer of the movie, every shot of the teaser, trailer is filled with him, like nothing else except him. I don’t have any problems with the casting choice, mostly because they have not explored these characters in the promotional material (Thank god).

The official budget is not confirmed yet but the estimates are between 500 to 1000 crores, so its certainly not a mid budget film.

This is one of the most controversial and infuriating material released from this movie. Ladies on ladies is the teaser introducing all the women in the movie, and every scene and I mean EVERY SINGLE scene has Yash in it. The main female characters of the film are barely shown and every second scene is a sex scene. Yash has sex with almost every women in the film at least according to the trailer. If you haven’t seen it, here you go:

The trailer shows Kiara Advani who is Yash’s lover whom he has sex with. Tiara sutaria who is some sort of femme fatale, the point is Yash has sex with her too. And two other female characters who are shown in the trailer who are Yash’s sex partners. And he has sex with other no- name women as well.

The trailer has a very cringy fight sequence with 3 white women fighting Yash and I mean it is a very hard watch but the action choreography in this scene is so lazy and pathetic, it is very obvious that they just wanted white girls in short clothes on the screen. While the entire trailer is playing out, in the background a voice is narrating something to us and this hit is so fucking insane I can’t believe they thought this was empowering. GET READY for this bullshit:

Love makes monsters of women. It is a beautiful illusion if one understands the depth of its deception. And yet here we are... fighting for his scraps of devotion. But here comes a plot twist, ladies... Don't forget the predictable spectacle of men and their cocks.

First of all this is so poorly written, if you pasted this inside a BTS fanfiction from 2019 it would have fit right in. But the actual problem is that the film promises a powerful female cast but while introducing the uses heavy sexual innuendos. The last line “Don’t forget the predictable spectacle of men and their cocks.” Is being said as one of the women fighting Yash falls onto him and Yash places the barrel of his gun inside her mouth. This shit is so trash. The women in this film are used merely as sex dolls except a few exceptions.

The official trailer was dropped a few days ago and there are a lot of things I like and dislike.

The camera and color grading is phenomenal is some scenes, the movie is living up to the high budget with the lavish set pieces, especially the night club and circus scenes look very well done.

But of course there are a lot of instances where the CGI is very poorly done and looks cheap.

This looks like they are standing in front of a videogame screen.

What the actual fuck is this? I have no words, what happened to acting? color grading? cinematography? visual effects?

The film has a great advantage of having an incredible city to work with, Goa was one of the last Indian territories to be freed of colonial rule. The story is based in 1940s to 1970s Goa, the film deals with underworld Mafia business and drugs & ammunition smuggling. This is a great opportunity to showcase the intricate history of a state that has been reduced to a vacation spot.

The trailer also shows shots of different cultures so its most likely that Yash will travel to different locations outside India. This scene in particular looks like a traditional Chinese celebration

This trailer has some of the cringest dialogues I have ever heard, man I could not believe someone thought this shit was tuff. In one of the shots, Yash is forced on his knees with a man pointing a gun to his head and the man asks

“Any last wish?”

And Yash replies: “Tere bhai ko jala kar, use rakh ko ander khichna chahta hu, khichne dega kya?”…….

In another scene, Yash is talking to Kiara for the first time and says:

“Aurat ka haseen ho na Kamaal hai, usi ko hatiyar banalo toh bawaal hai, ek raat ka itna leti hai?”

Another scene two women are talking and they are both his side chicks. One of them says:

“Who are you?”

the other one replies: “I’m his regular”

the first one points a gun at her and says “I’m his permanent”

Man this shit is so so trash, I hope the original lines are better because the hindi dub is so bad I can’t even believe they are promoting this as a Pan India project, the dubbing in other languages are so bad. Also the BGM is so loud that you can’t hear anything until you hold the speaker close to your ear.

The trailer and teaser combined have 10 separate scenes of sex and nudity display. And scenes containing acts of violence are uncountable, are we to believe that showing multiple shots of Yash having sex is integral to the story? I can guarantee you when the movie releases half of the sex scenes would be filer shots.

As we know sex sells, and these repeated shots are catering to the largest section of Yash’s fanbase, the young men. These men will chime in to see the movie only for Yash and sex, they will have zero interest in the movie, cast, music, storyline or cinematography nothing. The violence similarly is nothing but a facade to hide the lack of command over the screenplay, Indian cinema is in a “who are show more gore in movies” race and Toxic absolutely trying to get it. Yash also appears naked in one the scenes and like why, what was the point?

Shock value to everything to them, Toxic was supposed to release alongside dhurandhar and people were quiet excited for the theater rivalry but at the end moment Toxic backed away and re scheduled thier release. So generating hype for the movie through sex scenes and violence is their only way.

I really wish to support this movie, the plot is unique and interesting, they have good budget, great actors. If they tried this could be a great film about a man who climbed to the top of the underworld and slowly lost his min and used physical reliefs such as violence, sex and drugs. But its most likely that they will brush through that and focus on sex, blood and star worship as the core of the film. Also the trailer already revealed much of the plot, I thought of explaining it here but there is no point in spoiling it for you guys, Who know it might turn out to be a good movie.

Well now if you’ll excuse me, I have some Video tapes to return