Kesari Chapter 2 Movie Review
on Apr 18, 2025
Cast: Akshay Kumar, Simon Paiseley Day, R Madhavan, Ananya Panday, Regina Cassandra, Amit Sial, Alexx O’Nell, Steven Hartley, Krish Rao
Crew:
Based on The Case That Shook The Empire by Raghu Palat and Pushpa Palat
Written by Karan Singh Tyagi, Amritpal Singh Bindra, Sumit Saxena
Cinematography by Debojeet Ray
Edited by Nitin Baid
Music by Shashwat Sachdev
Directed by Karan Singh Tyagi
Produced by Hiroo Yash Johar, Aruna Bhatia, Karan Johar, Adar Poonawalla, Apoorva Mehta, Amritpal Singh Bindra, Anand Tiwari
Akshay Kumar has made it normal in recent times to make films based on historical events in Indian history and biopics with real life incidents as story elements. Another such attempt and second one from a franchise that producers hope to see blossom, Kesari Chapter 2. The movie talks about Jalianwala Bagh massacre from a court room drama purview. Interestingly, Madhavan joined the forces with Akshay Kumar and let's discuss about the film, released on 18th April, in detail.
Plot:
Sankaran Nair (Akshay Kumar) is a celebrated lawyer or barrister (appropriate for the time) rises to knighthood under British Regime in 1910's. The genius lawyer hailing from Kerala, is known to be ruthless and has zero losses to his name. He proves a poet Kartal Singh as a terrorist and due to the poet's 13-year old son, Prabat Singh (Krish Rao), a survivor of Jalianwala Bagh massacre, he decides to sue to the crown in legal battle.
Punjab Province Governor, Michael O'Dwyer, who used to be his thick friend, decides to turn against him and brings in half-Indian half-British Advocate Neville McKinley (Madhavan). Triath Singh (Amit Sial), trusted associate of Governor, tries to save General Reginald Dryer (Simon Paisley Day) as a warrior of British. How Sankaran Nair with a rookie lawyer Dilreet Gill (Ananya Panday) as his co-counsel turned the tide against Dryer is the film.
Analysis:
Sardar Uddam Singh film depicted the Jalianwala Bagh massacre in a Heart-touching manner and even a film like Rang De Basanti, did it effectively. Director Karan Singh Tyagi trying to establish an emotional connect tries to go over melodramatic route and we end up feeling the incident being dragged rather than impactful. This extensively used troupe of melodrama for the sake of it dulls the momentum straight away.
When talking about a lesser known person from Indian history, there is a necessary to introduce the character without standard heroic lines and rather with utmost care and sincerity about the real person. By casting Akshay Kumar in a Malayalee native person's role itself, the makers have taken a flawed decision and this kind of commercial formulaic bumps are expected. Still, Mission Mangal kind of films tried to be grounded yet this one tries to force a connection with Kesari.
Randomly, we see popular Kesari song Teri Mitti playing and Akshay Kumar wearing "Kada". Sankaran Nair, as a character itself, never gets defined rather he feels like another tailor made Akshay Kumar biopic character. Even he performs in the similar way, we see Akshay more or less than Sankaran Nair. A more potent attempt like in Jolly LLB 2, to play a different character, could have at least brought out some novelty to Akshay alas that is not the case.
Madhavan again proves how good a performer he is, by giving some amount of depth to a rather caricaturish character. Ananya Panday made sincere efforts in this one but again writing is monotone for her too. In trying to showcase someone as negative, you don't have to make them caricatures. General Dryer, a complicated person, who did unthinkable gets a Hitler like caricaturish arc.
Even if film claims are true, a character cannot just be simply bland. The court room scenes seem to be inspired from "A Few Good Men" and many scenes look to have been written to just somehow make jingoistic sentiment work. Akshay Kumar's performance has some merit along with good BGM and Production values but film ends up being another bland attempt by the lead actor.
In Conclusion:
Engaging in parts but sticks to commercial formula with less wit and conviction.
Rating: 2.25/5
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this review are reviewer's personal opinion. The organisation takes no responsibility and recommends viewer discretion.
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