I got goosebumps watching the second chapter of KGF; not because of the film (which is a misbegotten monstrosity) but because of the audiences’ reaction. They roared in shrill rapture throughout the film cheering their Rockybhai as if he was one of them. But alas, the audiences’ roars of approval were drowned by one of the noisiest, most anarchic soundtracks in the history of Indian cinema.
To describe KGF as an assault on the senses would be an understatement. The background sounds can’t be called music as they are composed of assorted heavy-metal riffs and other random noises borrowed from psychedelic sources -- literally ripping through your eardrums rendering all your senses numb and void. The editing is such that images of distressful emotional violence coalesce with erratic visuals of mobocracy where Rockybhai’s loyal disciples literally worship the ground he drags his feet on. It is hard to tell where a scene begins and where it ends. There are no punctuation marks in the narration. Pauses for breath are not Rockbhai’s style, you see.
When Raveena Tandon as the prime minister shows up to call Rocky ‘a common criminal’ no one is listening. One reason for this is the numbed eardrums. The other reason is this culture of glorifying gangsters that our cinema revels in. Everyone loves a criminal who helps the downtrodden and the ill-treated masses. And never mind the means to the end. It is about making the poor feel good about themselves. Rockybhai is Dr Ambedkar’s worst nightmare. A messiah of the downtrodden who is so power-drunk he can’t tell the difference between Robin Hood and Idi Amin. So, does KGF 2 live up to the hype and expectations? I am afraid not. The film’s torrent of choreographed action sequences is like one overpacked gift hamper after another doled out to the staff members of a flush investment company. But the gift hampers the flow of any substantial drama. The action serves no real purpose except as a reminder of the Franchise’s affluent background.
Denuded of any significant narrative motivation the action sequences flow out with the wasteful energy and resources of uncapped toothpaste. One of the biggest disappointments in Chapter 2 is the purported mortal combat between the two stars, Yash and Sanjay Dutt. The two look as mismatched in the mutual conflict as Salman Khan and Sonu Sood in Dabangg. There is no thrill in watching a 6-foot 63-year-old Bollywood veteran sparring physically with a star much younger, much shorter. For long patches, Dutt just disappears from the plot. It’s Yash and more Yash all the way. No Marlon Brando, not even Charles Bronson, Yash drags on his cancer sticks, draws his dialogues from the depths of his gutted soul, and when he gets bored, kills some more people.
All for the love of his mother, and gold. In that order. Yash in fact stands exactly in the same place vis-à-vis Chapter 2 as we do. It doesn’t take us anywhere we haven’t been before. The stakes this time are much higher, the odds against the sequel not succeeding are really low. But not a single fan of the KGF franchise and Yash, in that order, would come away overwhelmed by the experience. The action steamrollers the drama flattening the emotional content that was relatively high in Chapter1. There is a mother angle to the wreck tangle that Yash creates in the chaotic cosmos of his ambition’s graveyard. It is as preposterous as the kidnapped little girl in Rajamouli’s RRR triggering a national revolt.
The women characters, Raveena Tandon and Srinidhi Shetty, are either there for Rocky to spar with or like Archana Jois, who plays Rocky’s mother, she is around to shed a few token tears to ensure family audiences don’t get intimidated by the endless violence. Eswari Rao plays a Muslim mother mourning for her slaughtered son. She is A K Hangal from Ramesh Sippy’s Sholay, reborn into a chaos Gabbar Singh could have never imagined.
Raveena Tandon has an interesting hard nosed role as the Prime Minister (no less) of the country who is out to get Rocky locked away for good. But if Sanjay Dutt looks too world-weary to take on Yash, Raveena looks way too young to be such a formidable adversary to a hero who insists on wearing badly-cut suits to work. Which would be okay if he was a banker or stockbroker. But for a man who has blood on his sleeves constantly, it could get a bit messy. It is exceptionally inured to the status quo and sticks to the patent formula with the obstinacy of a poker player who knows he has the winning cards in his hands.
Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.
Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News, India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
from Firstpost Bollywood Latest News https://ift.tt/Bgmhy2U
No comments:
Post a Comment