Film: KGF: Chapter 1 (Kolar Gold Fields)
Cast: Yash, Srinidhi Shetty, Achyuth Kumar, Malavika Avinash, B Suresh, Nassar, Annat Nag
Director: Prashanth Neel
Rating: * *
Prashanth Neel’s ambitious attempt to make a ‘Baahubali’ of sorts to resuscitate and mainstream the Kannada film industry is not without merits but it’s not a show of force either. This film, chapter 1, is set in the early ’80s and has a history that probably goes back 17000 years- so expect to be in for the long haul of sequels if you latch on to this one.
The film opens with the army being sent in to capture India’s worst criminal (shades of Veerappan the Sandalwood Don). So is this film about an anti-hero? The opening suggests as much with Ramakrishna aka Rocky’s (Yash) silhouette shadowing the events that open up the deep chasm between perception and reality in this necrotic worldview of oppression, crime, and vigilante justice.
The Government has banned a book written on him by journalist Anand(Anant Nag). Only one copy survives and the author is the one telling journalist Deepa (Malavika Avinash) Rocky’s story in vivid technicolored detail, four decades after the ban.
Like in the 70’s Bollywood mainstream potboilers the young orphan Ramakrishna is shown heading to Bombay from Karnataka, polishing shoes for a living and eventually growing up the ranks of the city’s underworld to become a don – Rocky. A brief detour to Bangalore, a chance romantic entanglement with Reena (Srinidhi Shetty) and then on to the Kolar Gold Fields – where in the process of vanquishing the enemy, he also empowers a destitute workforce of over 20,000 people.
So it’s mainly stereotype and hype with very little attachment going for it. Yash and team do well to make it all look like a monumental heroic effort but at no point do you feel empathetic enough to believe in his efforts. The period styling is off-color, the dubbed Hindi dialogues sound alien, the cinematography though likable, lacks specific character, the background score is typical and the editing allows for a lot of over-indulgence instead of being sparing. For a Bollywood fed audience there’s really nothing new or interesting here to deserve attachment!
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