Rating: ⭐⭐/5
Toxic is the kind of film that mistakes excess for impact.
There is barely a two-line story here, yet Geetu Mohandas stretches it into an exhausting spectacle of violence, smoking, alcohol, intimacy, loud background music and endless larger-than-life moments.
The film desperately wants every frame to scream “MASS!”, but after a point, the constant barrage becomes less thrilling and more of a headache.
The biggest problem is the writing. The first half is padded with fillers, while the second half completely loses its way. What begins as a fairly engaging gangster action drama eventually turns into a confusing mess of random twists, forced dialogues and increasingly absurd developments.
There is a twist towards the end that clearly wants to land as a major revelation, but its execution is so clumsy that instead of creating shock, it leaves you wondering what exactly just happened. Here’s our full Toxic review!
Toxic Review:
Yash Is The Film — And That’s Also The Problem
There is no denying that Yash owns the screen. His bossy screen presence, attitude and swagger are tailor-made for this kind of larger-than-life gangster role. Whenever he enters a scene, the film suddenly gets an energy boost, and the terrific BGM does a lot of heavy lifting.
The first half has several whistle-worthy moments, particularly when Yash is allowed to simply dominate the frame. The violence is plentiful, the dialogues are designed for seeti-taali moments and the film clearly knows what its audience has come to see.
But the film’s obsession with making Yash look bigger and more powerful than everyone else eventually becomes irritating. Almost every action sequence feels like an extended hero-entry reel. Instead of serving the story, characters or emotion, scenes constantly seem engineered around making Yash look cool.
And when the clean-shaven Yash enters the picture as his son, things become even more problematic. The performance becomes exaggerated, the character gets increasingly irritating and the unusual dubbing only makes matters worse.
The Second Half Is Where Toxic Falls Apart
If the first half is an uneven but watchable mass entertainer, the second half is where Toxic essentially collapses.
The film becomes loud, repetitive and directionless, throwing violence, twists and forced mass moments at the audience without giving them enough narrative or emotional weight. The BGM, which initially elevates Yash’s scenes, eventually becomes unbearably loud and starts feeling like it’s desperately trying to manufacture excitement where the screenplay has none.
This is a classic case of style overpowering substance.
The editing doesn’t help either. Random cuts, abrupt transitions and unnecessarily stretched sequences make the film feel much longer than it actually is. Several portions could have been chopped considerably without losing anything important.
By the climax, the film is so busy trying to shock and overwhelm you that it forgets to actually make you care.
The Women Get Mixed Material
Nayanthara gets a substantial role and performs it well. She brings some much-needed emotional grounding to a film that otherwise spends most of its runtime operating at maximum volume.
Kiara Advani also gets a meaty part and makes the most of it, although the writing around her character doesn’t always work.
Rukmini Vasanth acts well, but her character graph is oddly written and becomes increasingly difficult to understand as the story progresses.
Tara Sutaria has limited scope but makes her presence felt.
Huma Qureshi, unfortunately, is left with material that does little justice to her abilities.
Geetu Mohandas Loses Control
Geetu Mohandas clearly has an eye for scale and atmosphere. There are moments in Toxic that look genuinely striking, and the film has a distinct visual identity.
But the direction becomes increasingly unfocused as the narrative progresses.
The first half suggests that Mohandas might have something interesting brewing. The second half suggests she simply loses control of the material. Instead of tightening the story, the film keeps adding more noise — more violence, more BGM, more dialogue, more twists and more Yash.
And that’s ultimately the biggest issue with Toxic: everything is turned up to 100, but very little actually lands emotionally.
Final Verdict
Toxic has scale, style, production value and Yash’s undeniable screen presence. It also has some genuinely entertaining mass moments in the first half.
But that’s about where the positives end.
The screenplay is wafer-thin, the first half is padded with fillers, the second half is a confusing and exhausting mess, the editing is unnecessarily chaotic and the film’s obsession with making every moment larger than life ultimately kills whatever soul it could have had.
Yash is good. The BGM is good when it isn’t screaming at you. The visuals are impressive.
But a movie cannot survive on entries, slow-motion shots and loud music alone.
Toxic wants to be a gangster epic. What it ends up being is a three-hour exercise in excess that mistakes noise for entertainment.
Final Verdict: SKIP.
Rating: ⭐⭐/5
Lead Image: KVN Productions
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