K.G.F: Chapter 2 (2022)

Finally the next instalment of Rocky and his plan for world domination is here! KGF2 is more of the same as Chapter 1, but with even more guns, declarative speeches and dramatic hair tosses from the leading man. The film follows on from the events of KGF1 to show Rocky now in control of the gold fields, but with so many enemies out to get him, how long will be manage to stay in power? Needless to say the answer involves plenty of brutal, blood-soaked violence and villainous in-fighting as the various factions try to gain the upper hand. It’s a whole lot of fun to watch as Prashanth Neel delivers yet another blockbuster in his definitive style.

The film opens with a group of men unearthing a buried statue of Rocky. We knew from the start of Chapter 1 that he didn’t have a good end, but the resulting crowd that surrounds the excavation serves to remind us that even if the Indian Government wanted to wipe his legacy from the record books, his people still remember.  It’s a powerful opening and an excellent reminder that Rocky was more than just a leader for the slaves in the mine – he was a god.

The film moves back to where KGF1 finished, with Rocky having killed the mine controller Garuda and taken control of the gold fields. He moves quickly to consolidate his power, and demonstrates his ruthlessness by killing Kamal (Vasishta N. Simha) when he objects to Rocky kidnapping Reena (Srinidhi Shetty). Perhaps in keeping with the seventies vibe, this is not a film that is progressive about women. All the female characters are either mothers or ‘entertainment’ with the exception of Ramila Sen (Raveena Tandon) who ends up as the Prime Minister of India. Raveena Tandon has more screen time and makes more of an impact than Srinidhi, despite the latter’s role as Rocky’s love interest. But Rocky’s mother Shanthamma (Archana Jois) and the slave woman (Eswari Rao) who is Farmaan’s mother, also have roles with a bigger impact than Reena. It’s a shame, especially that there is no big dance number, as in the small amount of choreography we do see, Srinidhi is lovely and I would have liked to have seen more. She does well with her limited role and hopefully we get to see her in more films soon.

As part of his plans, Rocky opens up all the mines for exploration amidst rumours that he exploiting the workers for his own gain. Attacks from his rivals organised by gangster Shetty (Dinesh Mangaluru) lead him to develop his own army from the slaves in the mines. To this end he recruits former overseer Vanaram (Ayyappa P. Sharma) to train the boys and look after security. But Rocky’s efforts seem in vain when Adheera (Sanjay Dutt) returns and kidnaps Reena as bait to lure Rocky out of the KGF complex. Of course that’s not the end of it as alliances are made and broken, politician Guru Pandian (Achyuth Kumar) schemes and plots and CBI officer Raghavan (Rao Ramesh) recruits the Prime Minister in his quest to bring Rocky to justice.

I was perhaps a little less invested in this film than the first one, I think because there is less emotional impact to the story. There is less of Rocky’s ‘soft side’ and even the impact of the young slaves taking up arms to fight for Rocky, and the children idolising their hero is lessened simply because there is just so much story to get through. It does make for tighter and more effective action but I felt the lack of the emotional core that underpinned the first story. However, there are plenty of amazing action sequences choreographed by Anbariv and others, and the special effects are world class. I still enjoyed the film immensely and it’s very close to being the perfect sequel. Sanjay Dutt is actually quite brilliant as Adheera making him a maniacal Viking with an unlimited capacity for cruelty. He is suitably dramatic and OTT in a role where nothing else would work as well. There are so many epic scenes that I can’t even begin to find a favourite, although Rocky’s entrance scene to the beats of hundreds of drums is certainly up there. 

Prashanth Neel uses the music from Ravi Basrur as part of the action, as he has done previously with the BGM in Ugramm. As the action ramps up, so does the score and it helps makes the fight sequences even more adrenaline inducing. What doesn’t work so well are the black screens he interposes in the car chase sequence where Rocky is chasing after the men who have Reena. I found that this broke up the action and slowed the effect down too much. But that’s a small quibble in a film where the action choreography is outstanding, and the fight sequences are the key to everything else in the story. Yash is again awesome as Rocky and despite the small audience for the show I went to, the entire theatre was cheering and whistling at his entry scene (me too!). He owns the character of Rocky through and through and invests him with real star power. As we see more of Rocky’s back story and his mother’s instructions, his name and stoic demeanour are ever more appropriate and the reason for his drive for success is as sad as it is inspirational. He takes on the seventies fashion with as much flare as in KGF1 and looks amazing in both the action and dramatic sequences. Again, most of the dialogue is declarative and uttered with high drama, but it suits the film premise and all the actors buy into the trope so it doesn’t seem overdone. 

Of the rest of the cast, most are suitably aggressive as various gangsters and Achyuth Kumar is suitably devious as a scheming politician. The narrator for KGF1, Anand Ingalagi (Anant Nag) is ill when the story begins, and the narration is taken over by his son Vijayendra (Prakash Raj). The breaks to the narration, still to Deepa Hegde (Malavika Avinash), serve as a good contrast to the more bombastic action sequences and help to fill in the back story as villains fly across the screen briefly before being shot, decapitated or otherwise destroyed by Rocky. I am a big fan of Ayyappa so loved seeing him back in the action and also really enjoyed watching Dinesh Mangaluru’s Shetty try to stay in control.

KGF2 deserves to be a blockbuster. Prashanth Neel has created a well defined world with characters that are well drawn with clear motivations and who all act in alignment with those drivers. Nothing is left to chance and despite the cast of thousands it is always clear exactly who everyone is and their role in the plot. The end credits give a tantalising teaser that there may be a KGF3. If so, sign me up now! Highly recommended for fans of action films who don’t mind some blood and gore with a really well made story.

Godhi Banna Sadharana Mykattu

GBSM poster

The past few years have seen a number of promising new directors appear in the Kannada film industry and Hemanth Rao is another to add to the list. His début film Godhi Banna Sadharana Mykattu has the benefit of an excellent cast, but the well-written story is beautifully developed and the blend of emotional drama, suspense and humour is perfect. At first glance it may appear rather dark as Anant Nag plays an Alzheimer’s patient who goes missing, with Rakshit Shetty as his increasingly desperate son, but there is plenty of joy in the film too and the emotional highs and lows are cleverly balanced. This is one of the best films I’ve seen this year so far, and as icing on the cake, it even has grammatically correct English subtitles!

What makes Godhi Banna Sadharana Mykattu such a good film is that Hemanth Rao tells a simple story exceptionally well. It’s just a bonus that the characterisations are superbly done and the dialogue is moving and funny while still sounding realistic and plausible. Venkob Rao (Anant Nag) is a widower who has developed Alzheimer’s and although he can remember his long ago past, his short-term memory is gone. Venkob’s son Shiva (Rakshit Shetty) has moved to Mumbai to work and placed his father in a nursing home since Venkob can no longer live by himself. The pressures of work and the distance that separates them mean Shiva rarely sees his father but when he comes back to Bangalore to seal a business deal he takes Venkob shopping for new clothes. The frustrations of dealing with an elderly and confused man while trying to buy him clothes and simultaneously talk business on the phone is eloquently portrayed here in just a few short scenes and Siva’s impatience is just as authentically portrayed. It’s nicely done and while Shiva comes across as an angry and harried man, Anant Nag gives Venkob dignity and occasionally lets a hint of mischievousness peek through that gives an insight into his personality before the Alzheimer’s disease took over.

After reaching breaking point, Shiva bad-temperedly drops Venkob off outside the nursing home and speeds away for a business dinner, but in the time it takes for the security guard to reach the front gate Venkob vanishes. Shiva immediately takes his frustrations out on his father’s doctor at the home, Dr Sahana (Sruthi Hariharan) threatening to ruin her career and sue the home although he was the one who didn’t take proper care of his father.  Dr Sahana is no pushover and hits back with Shiva’s abandonment of Venkob and his lack of engagement despite her calls and emails about his father’s progress. The dialogue is perfect, the reactions genuine and both Rakshit Shetty and Sruthi Hariharan are completely believable in their roles as they start the search for Shiva’s missing father.

Elsewhere a government official has been murdered and Ranga (Vasishta N. Simha) and his assistant Manja (Ravikiran Rajendran) have been given the job of disposing of the body. However their path crosses with Venkob when a brief stop along the way allows him to slip into the back of their truck. Unfortunately the truck crashes and when a good Samaritan Kumar (Achyuth Kumar) stops to help, Ranga and Manja steal his car and haul both Kumar and Venkob along as hostages. With Kumar and his family locked up in their house with Venkob and the two villains, tension starts to rise as Ranga’s boss tells him to kill everyone and move on. Meanwhile Shiva is still searching for his father with the help of Dr Sahana and through her eyes Shiva starts to see his father in a new light. The physical search becomes a way to reconnect with his past and possibly his father too if he can ever manage to find him.

Anand Nag is absolutely brilliant as a 66 year old man with Alzheimer’s, but the rest of the cast are just as good. Vasishta Simha is superb as a career criminal who is fine with disposing of bodies but struggles with the idea of cold-blooded murder. Since his potential victims include Kumar’s wife and young son as well as the effectively harmless Venkob, his reluctance is perhaps rather understandable. Ranga is not a killer and his emotional turmoil is perfectly shown, particularly when Venkob starts to confuse Ranga with his son Shiva and tries to give him advice. His memory may be gone, but Venkob can recognise a soul in distress and his attempts to console the man who is trying to kill him are heart wrenching. Despite this, Hemanth Rao keeps everything from getting too emotionally bogged down by including small moments of perfectly nuanced humour that fit surprisingly well into the story. It would be easy to use Venkob’s condition to generate some cheap laughs, but instead we are laughing with Venkob rather than at him, and it makes all the difference to the mood of the film. As well as the sudden lapses back into confusion by Venkob, the excellent performance by Achyuth Kumar makes this part of the film memorable for all the right reasons and the mix of tension, drama and humour created is spell-binding.

Although some of the scenarios are rather far-fetched (it’s hard to believe for example that Sahana has time to go jauntering off searching for a patient and abandoning her case load at the home), nothing about the film feels too contrived and the story moves smoothly between the search for Venkob and  the cooped up criminals. Rakshit Shetty puts in another commendable performance after Simple Agi Ondh Love Story, with an accurate portrayal of a man searching for his father and finding himself along the way. Sruthi Hariharan is just as good here as she was in Lucia and I thoroughly enjoyed her performance here as the down to earth and practical Dr Sahana.

The music was a little too loud at times in the cinema, but the songs from Charan Raj are all lovely and at the right volume suit the mood of the film perfectly. The cinematography too by Nanda Kishore is good with some great visualisations of the mental distance between Venkob and Shiva. This is one of those rare gems where everything just comes together, with story, cast, characterisations and all the technical aspects flawless and perfectly executed. It works because Godhi Banna Sadharana Mykattu is quirky and different but at heart is a tale that will resonate with audiences. The story jumps between father and son and between present and past. There is the contrast between one man’s search for his father and a relationship that appears to be lost, and another’s search for his conscience and a way out of a bad situation. This is film-making at its best and I can’t wait to see what Hemanth Rao comes up with next. Highly recommended – you don’t want to miss this one!