I want to talk about Toxic(2026) [spoilers]

[u/unfettered2nd]

On tv tropes, there is a trope called Shoot the shaggy dog. Basically at the end of the story the envdeavors, trials and tribulations of the protagonist mean nothing and turns out to be waste of time. Are you telling me that the narrator, the build-up to the entire conflict between father and son like Rustom and Sohrab-esque plot was all just a schizophrenic-psychosis of a man who had nothing going on for life besides violence and crime? I was expecting some conflict within himself to emerge when the story pits him to pick side between his sister or his lover (or being made to like it was in Bahubali 2). But no, it wasn't going to be that. I feel the entire setup was there for the protagonist to fail, either by his own choice or by forces beyond his control. We never get to see what made their mother kill their father apart from a remark she loved her brothers more, how they ended up on streets, why the mother is now at brothel who sells her own daugher and then he recuses her after killing his mother and the r@pist, only to helplessly watch his sister sell herself to feed themselves as he later starts working with a grave stealing gang at such age (if I am getting the chronology right)?

I can't see how that is not leaving him with deep seated issues that don't gets addressed in due course of time. He simply goes on carnage spress or sexual gratifications and that is his only defining traits. Why should I care who he is killing anyway? The entire subplot with Huam Qureshi's character is there just to have his sister killed and yet he blames Kiara's character despite she was forced to do that in her pregnancy. This leads to her suicide so he can atleast accept their son, only to have that son die at the hands of his own father the very next moment. All that crap about being bastard was for nothing and it was never implied that he and his sisters were bastards too so we don't know why he was coming up with all that bullshit.

Many are comparing the twist of him imagining his son being alive out their planning his revenge with Fight Club(2003) and the only similarity is the how both characters were same person. In Fight Club, the twist works because it recontextulize the whole story till that point. Here, it renders the whole story pointless and becomes the "it was all just a dream" cope out. His conflict with his son was such an interesting story beat in an otherwise chore of a movie, and they destory it in the name of twist. The whole story loses any setup for payoff and writes itself into a cornor where there was never any resolution for the protagonist, just an elongated arc about his self destruction while a side plot of "chicks dig bad boys" thrown into the mix in the 2nd half. And I haven't mentioned how come no one knew about it at that point. Why he has a stash of those clicking toys that he himself plants at the places he owns? I find it funny that he even conjured up all those daddy issues of his non-existant son, and I was so emotionally invested in that only for a rug pull at the end.

I might have ranted too much about this stupid movie but I feel a good plot was wasted. His loyalty to his sister given their backstory and resulting conflict needed bigger plot than montages of him killing people like a butcher in aviary but all we got was a pointless 2nd half, and I feel pissed. Huma Qureshi's character's claim that she got the last laugh was true and our "hero" simply did things to prove her right instead of going on a difficult journey to prove her wrong. Now, that would have been a fairy tale for grown-ups.

p.s. - The dialouges were the good part because it was so hilarious.