Now Showing: Animus

Animus
Genre: Drama/Thriller
Director: Jeff Nichols
Writer: Jack Ryder
Cast: Irfan Khan, Josh Holloway, Kumail Nanjiani, James Earl Jones (voice)

Plot: Rajbir Singh (Irfan Khan) wakes up with back of his head still hurting. He sees just black darkness of his rag and he feels his hands tied back up with rope, his legs chained and his mouth gagged. He understands he has been kidnapped and tries an unsuccessful attempt at breaking his binds with internally shouting with his full force for help. After few unsuccessful attempts he lies down afraid. After few seconds of pondering he stops thinking and hears the water droplets dropping from the roof near him after a good couple hours of rain. He smells the rustiness of the place he is kept at. The smell of waste, piss, alcohol and many other things he cannot imagine. After few hours of lying down he hears steps coming towards him. They come and open his legs chains and opens his hand ties. That moment he tries to wriggle his way out of them but before he can stand he is thrown down the floor by two people, he couldn't move for a few seconds after the impact but before he get control of his body he feels somebody holding his leg and starts dragging him like he is a doll. The force with him captor was dragging him he felt every up and down present on the floor, getting burns everywhere. After what felt an eternity his captor stops and throws him vertically then take his hand ans ties them up with what he felt was chains. Finally his rag was removed we saw it is Rajbir Singh behind the rag. He sees two masked man standing in front of him. Behind their back he notices four other men doing the same with two other men. The masked men come forward and removes his gags. Rajbir realizing his positions asks "What do you want?, What do you want from? What are you doing to me? Do you need money I can provide you with loads of money?" while he was painfully screaming it, He notices one of the other tied men, Nayeem Sethi (Kumil Nanjiani), is freed from his gag. The other guy shouts " Free me! Leave me", He sounded like he thought himself as a superior from his tone. A jab from the masked men knocked him out seeing this Rajbir also stopped shouting with fear gripping him. Lastly the other tied man, Anthony Davis (Josh Holloway), was also freed from his gag and he was silent, he tried to adjust himself to make himself more comfortable with the situation. Rajbir sees his surrounding and comes to the conclusion he is in an old warehouse. All the masked men left the room.

After some moments of silence, Rajbir breaks the silence by asking the well built guy in a very afraid voice " Who are you?" to which he replies " I am Anthony, Anthony Davis. You?". " My name is Rajbir Singh" Rajbir replied. "Why do they have kidnapped us?", Davis replied "Don't know"." What will they do to us" once again Rajbir questioned. " Maybe Ransom" answered Davis. In the meantime the other guy, Nayeem, woke up murmuring " He will pay for that". Rajbir seeing him wake up introduced himself and Davis and asked " Who are you?", the guy replied " You don't know me? I am Nayeem" shouted Nayeem to which Rajbir and Davis both gives a puzzled look. Nayeem seeing their reaction shouted " I AM NAYEEM SETHI. FILM STAR" they both nodded." What shit place they have kept me" complained Sethi. Rajbir seeing Nayeem's priority decided he might not be of that much help and asked Davis " Where do you think they left?". Davis after looking here and there, said " To watch us" pointed towards the cameras present everywhere in their room. Davis lies down and tried to relax seeing that Rajbir did the same where as Sethi stood up and walked to see the extent of his chains and used his full strength to break the chains away from wall but was unsuccessful after few minutes of roaming here and there, he also sat.

Few wide shots showcasing the trios silence and emptiness of the barn which only contained the three, some cameras and a big old steel box. The silence is broken down by the voice of few cars coming around their barn. Joy came in the heart of Rajbir and Sethi hearing the voices of the car thinking they will be rescued. They came to their senses and started shouting for help. Davis also became intrigued and stood up and tried to find a way to see outside form the barn. But their shouts of help were ignored, After continuously shouting for 15 minutes they shouts lacked the joy and were filled with desperation. Because of continuously shouting Rajbir was engulfed in coughing and seeing that Sethi also decided to give it a rest. They once again went into their silence.

After hours of silence passed, They were greeted by a husky voice (James Earl Jones) saying "Wake up my sleeping angels" to this they all sit up and listen. "You all can call me Mr. N, I will be your host for your stay. I have seen that you have not introduced yourselves to each other properly. Let me do it for you. First let me introduce you Rajbir Singh, He works at the Wall Street printing dollars. His fame to claim is he is a doting brother to a lovely sister. Next is Anthony Davis, he owns one of the largest estate in the state, which was given to him after his grandfather's death. Finally our star of the night Nayeem Sethi, man he has acted in so many straight-to-DVD films you can't even count. Now he has set his sight on the big screen he has filmed a scene in the next "TREK WARS", You are playing a Stormt..". "Why are You keeping us here?" Anthony intervenes. "Always to the point" Mr. N replies. "We are here for Justice, One of you has committed a grave crime, The one needs to be punished". Rajbir chimes in "Who has done what?". Mr. N says "Murder, One of you has taken a life of another human being and hence needs to die". Rajbir once again shivering says "Murder! so take the man who has did this crime and punish him why did you took me I don't even kill a mosquito". Anthony nods his head in denial and shock. "That's the problem Mr. Rajbir we are not sure who has done the crime, hence you all are here to help us decide who has done the crime and to deliver the punishment." Sethi gulps and says "Punishment?" to which Mr. N replied "Yes Punishment. Our Institution believes in "Eye for an Eye" so the murderer has to die and the remaining two shall deliver the punishment and after you kill the murderer you will be freed". Sethi starts laughing and tells mockingly "Mr. N, go and tell your producer he is gonna face the wrath of my lawyer when he hear this. I am fed up of this hidden camera bullshit TV shows". Rajbir puzzled asks "Hidden cam-ee-ra Shows?" to which Sethi replies "This is one of the hidden camera shows like where they try to fool you and then show you are on TV". "Oh! you are so smart, Sethi. Go" Mr. N replies.

Suddenly the doors open and two masked men come in front of Sethi to which Sethi replies "Open me you idiots". Mr. N says "Who do you think is behind the masks, Mr. Sethi? Jimmy Fallon or Kevin Hart. Boys why don't you show him". The masked men took their hands towards the corners of the mask to pull them out but then they start thrashing Sethi with kicks and punches. Mr. N once again on the mic "Do you think this will happen on your shows? This is real Sethi. Don't try to mock me again I don't want to hurt anybody. The thing is simple find the killer and kill him but both the other two men should vote for the same man to be killed or else I won't provide you the means to do the job and to give you some incentive, Boys." then four more masked men enter the room, Each pair attending one of the three they start taking out two injections and dose all our hostages with this two injections while them shouting and resisting. "The first one is for your energy guys. You three haven't eaten since you came here and the second one is just a poison which will first put you to sleep and then kill you in 2 hours. Okay will see you again". All the three lose their conscience.

We see a silhouette of a girl running and Rajbir running behind her but after some time Rajbir loses her from his sight and starts shouting her name "Ria" and then he wakes up shouting her name in the barn. "Your sister name?" asks Anthony to which Rajbir nods. "Good. You two are awake now you two can decide who wants to die between you two. It can't be me as I didn't killed anybody and I am a star." says Sethi. Anthony angrily shouts "WILL YOU PLEASE SHUT UP?" while he was saying that small notification alerts come form each of them, they check their pockets and find a phone which was showing some information. "Before you try to start calling somebody let me tell you it won't work the phones can only be remotely controlled and will only show screens which I want to show to you. So let's begin" Mr. N says.

The first of the file sent was named "Anthony Davis". It contained a link detailing a fight, a legal fight between Anthony and his neighbor Mr. Smith over land problems in their estates. Second thing in the file contained some questions which can be asked by them to Anthony. Seeing them Sethi started "What was the land problem?" " He was claiming ownership to some of my land" Davis replied. "Was it settled?" chimed Rajbir, "Yes, the court gave it to me rightfully" Davis answered. "Did it went smooth?" Sethi again questioning. "They were hiccups, we each landed some blows on each other" Davis answered. "This one is a bit weird. Do you have a very large carpentry workshop in your estate just for you personal use?" Rajbir asks, "Yes, I do" Davis answers again. Rajbir gulps seeing the next question and asks a bit frightened "Can the machinery in it cut a human body into pieces that can be easily disposed?", Anthony angrily sees Rajbir and replies " I don't know I have not tried it." Sethi looked like he was now a bit comfortable where as Rajbir tried to distance himself from Davis. The next thing on the file was another newspaper link showing that a missing complaint has been filed for Mr. Smith and after 30 days of searching they declared possibly dead after finding a blood dried finger in his estate which was after some test was confirmed to be his. Sethi jumped saying "See Rajbir he is the murderer now let us go Mr. N". Rajbir in horror asked " Di-did you do this?" to which Davis replied "Why would I kill him? He had a lot of enemies and the police has already cleared me." "The police can be bought." Sethi says. "Let's not waste time Rajbir." Rajbir is clearly panicked. "What are you thinking? Come on name him." Sethi shouts. "Can I have a moment please I like to think" Rajbir replied and went into silence. "Good don't make him pressurize you into making a bad decision" said Anthony.

Suddenly their phones buzzed again this time the file which came was named Nayeem Sethi. "There is nothing to read here" Sethi says after seeing the file name. A video opens up showng two men beating another man. The camera then zooms up showing the man to be beaten up was Nayeem and the two beating where some one time famous actors. They were shouting "You want to become an actor huh? Act yourself out of this beating, You can't do that huh? You brown should not be out here go and act in your gutters where you belong" and the video ended. "I told you nothing to see there" Sethi answered while a tear came out of his eyes. "What happened?" Rajbir asks Sethi, to which he replied "Same old things". The next thing in the file was a news article covering the death of the two actors who were beating Sethi. It told that they were first drugged and then they were brutally beaten to death and their murderer is still at large.

"Now, I see why you were in a hurry to convince Rajbir to chose me as a murderer as you are the one who has murdered this two people" said Davis. "I didn't killed this two” retorted Sethi. “Then who did?” asks Rajbir, “Their Lifestyle, They were known bullies in the industry everybody knew they spend more than they earn and were in trouble with a lot of loan sharks. One of them might have delivered them what they deserved.” said Sethi to which Rajbir gives him a look. “Yes, I don’t have any remorse for their soulless bodies.” Sethi answered to that look. “That’s not enough, you can still be involved” Davis said. “You both can be the murderer, How can I chose one?” while Rajbir was saying this he was interrupted by another buzzing sound coming from their phones. The moment the buzzing sound came Sethi jumped on his phone to see what came now. They all received the third file named Rajbir Sethi. Rajbir face turned blue and started frowning and slowly opened the file maybe knowing what was in the file. A video opened up it contain 20 to 25 people protesting, Rajbir was one of them. A lady comes in front and starts saying we want justice for our children, the police are not doing their job properly, if they were doing it properly we would not have 5 children molested going through therapy. Then some other adults while crying said I want justice for my daughter and in that that crowd Rajbir comes in and said I want justice for my sister and the video stops on the crying face of Rajbir.

Rajbir starts crying, “I am sorry” said Davis and then start scrolling the file it contained a news article reporting that when the police raided a house to nab a known molester but instead they found his dead body who was clearly murdered by being choked by a wire, his private parts were also mutilated which lead the police to think that this crime was committed in vengeance. The address of the molester was given to the police by Rajbir Singh brother of a victim who has put his all to get the molester.

“How did you get his address?” asked Davis, “My sister Identified him and then I found him leeching in some playgrounds and followed him to his house. I was angry, I wanted to do something on my own but I couldn’t do it and I gave the address to the police, but they found him dead, I cried that day thinking why I didn’t do it, I should have punished him for what he did to my sister, Today also I carry the guilt.”. “So who do you think killed him?” asks Sethi. “Someone brave enough to do the job. I was not the only one whose life was disturbed by that man they were other parents who put their 100% to find him. Everybody did except for the police.” replied Rajbir.

Both Sethi and Davis cleared Rajbir thinking he doesn’t have it to kill a man and then start playing the blame game with both pointing finger towards each other.

“Looks like you all have read and watched the files, now it’s time to make the decision. Take your time but let me warn you three slept and wasted a huge amount of your two hours.” Mr. N chimed in.
“Rajbir, you have to make the decision” said Davis while coming forward. “Trying to coerce him, He is the murderer Rajbir, see through him” Sethi retorted. Suddenly Rajbir rose up and said “Mr. N I chose Sethi, Davis is the murderer.”. Davis gets angry and tries to break his chains. Two masked men enter the room and threw keys towards Sethi and Rajbir and then open the chest present in the barn and left. After some time both Sethi and Rajbir freed themselves and saw that a knife was present in the chest they took it knowing they have to use it to kill Davis. Rajbir picked it up and gave it to Sethi saying “I can’t do it.”. Davis is on beast mode grunting and trying to break his chain when Sethi tries to stab him he is pushed back by Anthony to which Sethi asks Rajbir to help and Rajbir grabs Davis legs and Sethi stabs him but Davis wouldn’t go down with out giving a fight suddenly Rajbir’s phone started buzzing he saw that it is getting call and answer it while Sethi was engulfed with Davis. “Hello Rajbir, It’s N. Man, Sethi is so full of surprise he had no qualms killing a man” by this time Sethi grabbed the upper hand and was stabbing Davis with all rage multiple times.. ” I called you to give a new tidbit I was just scrolling through my Twitter and guess what I found out. Mr. Smith the neighbor of Davis is alive he faked his death to claim a Billion dollar insurance, As we are speaking he is being taken by FBI. Oh! that leave us with a problem that means Davis was not the killer that means your freedom is still a question. Rajbir be careful you are with a murderer who is in rage.” Rajbir gets tensed..”Rajbir I am here to help you, look around you, Do you see that wire on your left pick it up” Rajbir picks the wire.

“What did you get Rajjj..Agh! Urh!” Sethi was intervened by a wire on his neck choking him. Rajbir was choking Sethi with all his life after two minutes of struggle Sethi dies. The doors of the barn open Rajbir stands and asks “Where is the antidote to the poison?”, “There was no poison, Rajbir. It was just a ruse. You are free to go” Mr. N answered. To which Rajbir started walking out.

While he is walking we go in flashback where we see Rajbir in front of the molester's house. He picks up a wire just outside from his building and sneaks in. The molester was taking a bath when Rabir came behind him and started choking him with the wire. We see the body of the molester falling down.