Unforgettable chapter, but not here
Havildar Ishar Singh of ‘Kesari’, Sir Sankaran Nair of ‘Kesari Chapter 2’. Two different plots, two different timelines, but both have a common trait — the famous Akshay Kumar swag.
As Sir C Sankaran Nair (Akshay Kumar) crushes his opponents in the courtroom or when he hurls the ‘F’ word at a judge and tells the British to ‘Get the f*** out of my country’, or makes a comment on General Dyer’s manhood, there is no escaping from it. And every time he walks into the courtroom, a background song plays, amplifying his invincibility.
Director Karan Singh Tyagi is obviously in awe of the Akshay Kumar phenomenon than the protagonist he picks up from Raghu Palat and Pushpa Palat’s book, ‘The Case That Shook The Empire!’.
Taking the courtroom angle from the book, Tyagi uses his imagination to spin a narrative befitting Akshay’s persona.
It opens with a scene from the horrific Jallianwala Bagh massacre on April 13, 1919. Dyer (Simon Paisley Day) orders a brutal attack on a peaceful gathering protesting against the draconian Rowlatt Act.
The British play it down as a response to a violent rebellion, but activist Kirpal Singh’s son Pargat Singh (Krish Rao), who loses his mother and sister in the massacre, strives to reveal the truth. A chance meeting with the young lad makes Nair question the false narrative. As he smells a premeditated genocide, Nair, along with his co-counsel Dilreet Gill (Ananya Panday), takes on the British establishment, represented by Neville McKenzie (R Madhavan).
‘Kesari Chapter 2’ comes with the tagline: ‘The Untold Story of Jallianwala Bagh’. But this story has found its way to the silver screen time and again. The most recent being Ram Madhavani’s OTT outing ‘The Waking of a Nation’. Again a courtroom drama, it, in fact, delves much deeper into the conspiracy angle. Exposing the role of Punjab’s then Lieutenant-Governor Michael O’Dwyer in the massacre, to be precise. Tyagi’s film harbours no such grand ambition. Its focus remains solely on Dyer and the massacre.
What perhaps had remained untold till now in the numerous Bollywood outings is General Dyer’s childhood trauma at Bishop Cotton School, where he was ridiculed by his fellow students for stammering. His hatred for Indians germinated there! Hatred that moves a man to kill about 2,000 Indians without any provocation? Highly unlikely!
But then, ‘Kesari 2’ is a commercial outing that depends more on the surface gloss than facts or logic. Even the massacre, though shown in graphic detail, is soon forgotten. It’s Nair — his dynamism, his wit, his conviction — that one is supposed to laud throughout the two hour, 15 minutes run-time.
Nair’s change of heart, from being a fierce loyalist of the British to one who fights it tooth and nail, does not resonate much. The entire arc of rise, fall and rise again is too shallow to be convincing.
The courtroom drama unfolds with a single purpose — to make Nair win. Evidences just find their way to him, witnesses change their stance to help him out.
Akshay tries to do his bit to inject gravitas into his character, but a poorly-written character and dialogues that sound out of place, considering the timeframe, leave him with little scope. So, he ends up doing what he does best — lending swag to it!
Madhavan’s intense and charismatic entry in the second half lifts the drama. Ananya Panday tries hard to look and act the part that belongs to the last century, but the fizz-less writing has let her down too. She is as ornamental as Regina Cassandra in the role of Parvathy, Nair’s wife.
The British characters, with their accented Hindi and mannerisms, are caricaturish. Even the villain of the piece, Simon Paisley, fails to make an impact.
The surprise element of ‘Kesari Chapter 2’ is Masaba Gupta’s item number. And talking of music, ‘Teri Mitti’ from ‘Kesari’ is repurposed but is drawn in the cacophony induced by over-the-top action. So over the top that a judge ultimately tells Nair, “I don’t want any theatrics, sir.” Wish director Karan Singh Tyagi had listened to him.
Movie Review