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Unpopular opinion: Perhaps the discomfort around Toxic is precisely the point.
In a country where some of our most casually celebrated expletives begin and end with “mother” or “sister”, and where machismo, male entitlement, and the mythology of the “alpha male” continue to find enthusiastic takers, a film that questions those very ideas was always going to be a difficult sell.
Look at the success and cultural impact of films such as Animal, Arjun Reddy, Pushpa, and even Yash’s own KGF. Their protagonists are larger-than-life men who dominate spaces, women, and adversaries, often turning aggression, violence, and entitlement into markers of masculinity. Audiences have not merely accepted these characters; they have frequently celebrated them.
Toxic, interestingly, seems to be doing something rather different with its own larger-than-life protagonist.
At its core, the film questions male entitlement, megalomania, and the idea that the most powerful man in the room must necessarily remain invincible. The protagonist may be unmatched, but he is not infallible. And that distinction becomes crucial.
The film draws, quite consciously, from the Greek idea of hubris: excessive pride that ultimately becomes the seed of one’s downfall. The final half-hour, in particular, can be read less as an external battle than as an internal one, with the protagonist confronting the demons created by his own mythology.
That is perhaps why calling Toxic merely an action film or a gangster fantasy misses what it is attempting. Its “fairy tale for grown-ups” is not really about a hero defeating increasingly enormous ogres and monsters. The bigger monster is within him.
Yet consider the environment in which this film is being watched. In theatres, lines that reinforce the protagonist’s misogynistic worldview can still draw cheers and hoots. A statement suggesting that one can overcome problems with women and alcohol simply by having more women and alcohol is precisely the kind of unapologetic machismo that many audiences have been trained to celebrate.
In that context, when the same film turns around and asks whether this larger-than-life man is actually trapped by his own entitlement, the reaction is bound to be more complicated.
Perhaps the most revealing evidence of this uneasiness is the conversation around the intimate scenes involving Kiara Advani and Rukmini Vasanth. There has been considerable anger directed at the women for participating in those scenes, along with questions about their choices and characters. But why is that outrage so disproportionately directed at the women and not at Yash, who plays the man participating in those very scenes?
That distinction is telling.
The same culture that is perfectly comfortable constructing a married male superstar as the epitome of desirability, virility, and masculine power can become remarkably uncomfortable when women exercise sexual agency within that same narrative. The women become subjects of moral scrutiny while the male star remains insulated by his image. The “perfect married superstar” can perform desire on screen, yet the women opposite him are asked to explain theirs.
That is not merely a conversation about Toxic. It is a glimpse into the very conditioning the film appears to be examining.
And yet, there is a legitimate criticism that cannot simply be brushed aside. In attempting to portray toxicity, misogyny, and male excess, Toxic may at times celebrate them a little too enthusiastically. The line between depicting a toxic worldview and making that worldview seductive can become dangerously thin. In certain places, the film may even undo some of the ideas it appears to be setting up for scrutiny. Perhaps the makers have pushed the celebration of toxicity and misogyny so far that the critique gets compromised, and that is a fair charge to level at the film.
But that does not pardon the other problem beyond the film: the disproportionate discomfort with the women, the moral policing of their choices, and the curious immunity extended to the male star at the centre of it all. We can question whether Toxic successfully dismantles the toxicity it depicts while simultaneously questioning why audiences are so much more forgiving of the toxic male protagonist than of the women around him.
Both conversations need to exist.
And this is not necessarily restricted to men. Women, too, grow up within the same cultural ecosystem and can internalise the very misogynistic values that films have normalised for decades. Conditioning does not disappear simply because the audience is female.
None of this is to suggest that Toxic is a flawless masterpiece. It isn’t. Geetu Mohandas and Yash have not necessarily made the most perfectly constructed film of their careers. The film has shortcomings, and those deserve criticism.
But perhaps the film’s flaws and our own contradictions can coexist.
We live in an age obsessed with perfect images, filters, and increasingly AI-assisted versions of “great writing”. Toxic feels deliberately interested in something messier: the naked, uncomfortable truth of a man confronting the consequences of his own mythology.
Perhaps it is simply too much for the current moment. Or perhaps audiences will eventually catch up with what the film is attempting.
Either way, it is worth pausing before dismissing it.
Because cinema should not only give us the heroes we already know how to cheer for. It should also occasionally make us uncomfortable about why we cheer for them in the first place.
And perhaps that is the most interesting thing Toxic has attempted.
Sunayana Suresh is a journalist, film critic, writer, and filmmaker with two decades of experience writing about Indian cinema, particularly Kannada and South Indian films. She has also worked in the film industry, bringing an understanding of filmmaking and storytelling to her writing.
Views expressed are the author’s own.