Kanguva Movie Review: Kanguva directed by Siruthai Siva and starring Suriya and Bobby Deol has a lot of potential but it is mired by writing that is incoherent and execution that is sub par.
It has been roughly two and a half years since Suriya had a significant commercial release. Even before Kanguva hit the cinemas, Suriya and Gnanavel Raja the producer of the film made flamboyant statements about the success of the film. While Gnanavel said the movie will earn Rs 2000 crores in revenue across the globe, Suriya in all fairness spared no effort in marketing the movie. But, did the movie meet the huge freak expectations the team had erected for themselves? We better find out!!
Kanguva’s storyline is set in two timelines wherein he narrates the events that occurred in the past and the present. A bounty hunter named Francis (Suriya) resides in the futuristic panorama of 2024 and a child who aids him eventually allows him to recollect his childhood memories. Many centuries earlier, Kanga aka Kanguva, whose name means son of the sun and also a prince belonging to a certain tribe, was engaged in several battles for his village of Perumachi which was under siege from marauding Romanians.
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But it is not only the Romanians, another clan led by the ferocious Udhiran (Bobby Deol) comes in the way and threatens Perumuchi village. Soon, the conflicts that started with the clans shifted to the two leaders of the clans, Kanga, and Udhiran. The story will revolve around how Francis of today relates himself to Kanga.
Kanguva, directed by Siruthai Siva, is an ambitious project. The director’s intention to incorporate the past and the present within the context of commercial cinema speaks volumes of his skill. In just a little over two and half hours, one can witness Siva’s flickers of brilliance in the concepts that have been included in the film. These concepts, however, remain conceptually un-fully realized and in that sense, rather disappointing from the perspective of the audience.
Kanguva is an action-fantasy drama that falls short of greatness. It fails to impress much prior to any of the Kanguva starts its action packed portions. The film begins in its present portion where the main characters are depicted and unfortunately these 20 minutes are quite agonizing pace. So what’s the answer? The so-called comedy doesn’t make any sense nor do you figure out what’s happening. Then there are great memes from Instagram which have been included to attract the younger generation. It also looks like an Instagram reel really. Then the film became intense when the action scenes took place.
Kanguva, especially Suriya’s portrayal of the character Kanga, is compelling in the 2D version of the film. This is where the film tries to hijack the attention of the audience. Kanguva is , of course, the core of production carried out by the SS Rajamouli, Ram Charan, and others – Magadheera. And this is what Magadheera was able to achieve, albeit Kanguva misses out on this completely. The screenplay is sloppy and very less concise. The fight gives the impression that Suriya’s kanga was stabbed, and then the next scene shows Kanga standing over a mountain of dead bodies.
When Udhiran loses his two men and tries to cope with their death, which is powerfully portrayed by Bobby Deol, the film does not go deep into such scenes for characterization which is another big flaw. The other gaping problem is the variation in the use of vulgarities in the period parts. The same characters tend to start in ancient Tamil and then use colloquial Tamil as the film progresses, and this imbalance in the use of language distances you from the film itself.
Kanguva is bearable largely because of Suriya. His sincerity in whatever he does, in action or in emotional sequences, carries the film. Bobby Deol is wasted in a film like Kanguva. It’s not intimidating definitely and changing angles, slo mo’s, and turning head doesn’t help him either. It seems he did try to become the character, but it seems there was little effort that could’ve been effective. Disha Patani should have been more active in a project where supporting actors of not much reputation are given prominent fight scenes.
Kanguva is also one of the loudest films you could watch in theaters. All accents are too thick from Suriya and Redin Kingsley to Bobby Deol. On top of that, Devi Sri Prasad’s music and thundering background music literally makes one want to shout “get me some silence”. The credits might roll but you might still recall the film’s music score long after that.
That said, one cannot ignore the fact that Kanguva looks beautiful as seen from the tapes and photographs lensman Vetri Palanisamy took. The two main worlds created by the several clans and the general mood seem to blend in well.
Kanguva is, to put it mildly, a missed opportunity for the filmmaker who had so much raw material and still failed to get the best out of it. Kanga’s history, his family history and more focus on the time periods and competition of five clans could have made a much better film. Unfortunately, in this day and age too many directors get hit by sequel fever. There’s a cameo here that alludes to a sequel. But not every film should have a sequel, right? That is something each and every director should be asking himself.