Why Yash's action outing 'Toxic' should've been titled 'Traumatic'

An overreliance on action and swagger, key attributes of Yash's screen persona, creates a forgettable storyline in which women exist to merely serve the anti-hero“This isn’t an Amar Chitra Katha fairytale” says Rocking Star Yash in the introduction to his first film since KGF: Chapter 2, the movie that turned his fortunes around by giving him pan-India popularity. It’s another thing that by the end of three hours and 15 minutes of crass dialogues, gory violence and over-the-top shenanigans in Toxic, one yearns for a simple Amar Chitra Katha tale.Action and swagger are key attributes of Yash’s screen persona. In Toxic, though, there’s overreliance on the combo to such an extent that the story seems to have been forgotten altogether. Like the KGF films, here too it’s hard to keep pace with what is happening, where it is unfolding and even who is who after a point.Toxic oscillates between pre-Independence Goa, Macau, a circus, and unidentified icy landscapes. The period exists solely for scale and serves little context. The sight of guns, disembodied body parts, explosions and wreckage is so routine that its impact gradually becomes negligible. Net result: Somebody dies, nobody cares. At the centre of Toxic are Raya (Yash) and Ganga (Nayanthara), siblings who have had a traumatised childhood and grew with many hardships easily noticeable in their “sad eyes”. Those words are uttered by Kiara Advani’s Nadia, who isn’t a face reader but an acrobat in a circus. In the roster of actresses Toxic boasts of, to Kiara goes the honour of being the fire-starter. Hers is a character with a clear purpose: twist Raya’s heart and head into knots.And succeed she does, for the anti-hero is smitten at first sight. Long forgotten is Tara Sutaria’s ‘Salvador ki beti’, a relationship which operates to keep a business partnership going. Ganga solemnly watches from the sidelines as her brother loses himself to Nadia—their steamy romance illustrated in the song “Tabaahi”.Here, love is a source of destruction—if the song title wasn’t illustrative enough—and in the hands of writers Geetu Mohandas (also director) and Yash, it’s only depicted through Raya’s passion and libido. That’s not the only problem of Toxic as it juxtaposes sex and violence frequently in the first half.Women exist here on the periphery or in service of the hero. It’s best summed up in how, as one character notes, Raya destroys every woman he encounters. “Kya prachand itihaas likha hai (What an intense history is being scripted),” he says. It’s both a rare astute observation and honest assessment amidst a barrage of otherwise cringey lines.Women here either cause chaos or are a liability, forcing the hero on a path of self-destruction. Yet, they feel passive and weak. This is best evident in Nadia: she starts off as a woman who perplexes and challenges Raya, but she too by the end is drowning in drink and misery.While Huma Qureshi and Rukmini Vasanth are ill-served with forgettable parts, at least Nayanthara gets to be in her big sis-big boss mode. “Mardon ke liye ladte ladte hum insaan se raakshas bann jaate hain (Women turn demons fighting for the men),” says one female character in a rare dialogue that offers a woman perspective.If the first half is essentially a lust and brief-love story, the second is an exposition of daddy issues wreaking havoc and a fractured father-son relationship. Guilt and vengeance become an overriding theme. It is while grappling with it that Toxic shows brief flickers of emotion as “Ticket”, a de-aged Yash, steals the show with his crazy and gruesome antics. The twist would have been an emotional gut-punch as it touches on personal demons, but in Toxic’s aural and visual world, it loses its potency amidst screams and carnage.Toxic often feels like it’s adhering to a fetish or fantasy. From sequences of Yash killing an army of clowns and Caucasian women disguised as nuns to an action set-piece during a funeral. A more apt title for Toxic would have been ‘Traumatic’.Subscribe to India Today Magazine- EndsPublished By: Akshita JollyPublished On: Aug 27, 2026 20:20 IST