Kingdom Movie Review: Tall ambitions, flailing emotion

The trailer of Kingdom, released a few days ago, gave away many of its plot points, including one that said it is essentially a story of two long-lost brothers, and the situations that bring them back. When Soori (Vijay Deverakonda) finally meets Siva (Satyadev) after many years, it’s an emotionally complex moment for the former. Soori had to find a way to catch his brother’s attention, even if it meant inviting a lethal combat. It’s not necessarily the warm reunion Soori was hoping for, but this is how it had to pan out, and he must make peace with the bittersweet turn his journey has brought him to.

Director: Gowtam Tinnanuri

Cast: Vijay Deverakonda, Satyadev, Bhagyashri Borse, Venkitesh, Manish Chaudhari

This moment lands because it arrives after a considerable buildup of Soori’s yearning for Siva’s presence. The issue with Kingdom is how its entire narrative depends on the landing of these complex emotional moments, which carry many layers. It’s not easy to sustain such a grip on a story’s emotional arc, while establishing a fictional universe with all its cogs intact and accessible. Director Gowtam Tinnanuri sadly succumbs to the pressure. Kingdom is an ambitious failure, somewhat admirable but largely underwhelming. 

To be fair, there is a sleekness to Kingdom that keeps it going in the first half. It’s an interesting visual language (the comparisons with KGF are really unfair, I feel). Gowtam Tinnanuri understands the significance of building momentum, and it shows. There is commendable work by everyone on board, be it the cinematographer duo of Girish Gangadharan and Jomon T John, costume designer Neeraja Kona, or production designer Avinash Kolla. Anirudh’s music often elevates many moments, including the climactic sequence. There are a couple of impressive action setpieces, including a speedboat chase scene, and one particular chilling sequence where a group of people are locked in a house before being killed. Before the violence kicks in, the audience gets the time to register the impending terror, which adds all the more to the grim. 

It’s not that Kingdom is a bad film, but the film never soars or lives upto the true potential of its themes. Gowtam’s previous work Jersey was as simplistic and straightforward a story as they get, riding entirely on its emotional weight. On the other hand, Kingdom has too many things on its platter, and ends up doing a disservice to most of them.   

But Kingdom’s ambitions go far beyond its action pieces or world-building. The film rests on the relationship between Siva and Soori, and how it evolves once they reunite under different circumstances. However, the film never makes peace with its core premise. You can see Gowtam Tinnanuri wants to make a grand epic that almost has a mythical quality. At the same time, embedded in the story is this inherent need to drive on emotional beats, which this film struggles to do. The portrayal of Soori’s internal moral conflicts as he finds himself deeper in this new world remains half-baked. Similarly, once Siva learns the truth about the reasons for Soori’s arrival, the conflict doesn’t crescendo to a level or add to the tension the way you expect it to. Intertwined with the brothers’ tale are many other elements that comprise the plot — a local smuggling nexus, a morally dubious RAW officer, and the concept of bonded slavery in the guise of refuge. This is clearly a tall undertaking — executing a story which has to establish the unique socio-political dynamics of its universe even as it attempts to drive a familiar sentiment home — and the makers struggle to tie it all neatly. For all its technical strengths and standalone moments, Kingdom never seems coherent enough or emotionally gripping enough to keep us hooked throughout.

Given the flailing narrative, Vijay Deverakonda has no choice but to carry the movie on his shoulders. Satyadev also deserves equal credit for his earnest performance. The two actors share several scenes brimming with vulnerability, and bring an emotional intensity that doesn’t find a match in the scriptwriting. Bhagyashri Borse doesn’t have much to do in the film, unfortunately. 

There is one big takeaway for me from Kingdom, though. While other key players of the film could be seen struggling with the material, a new face (for Telugu film-goers, that is) was having a lot of fun. Venkitesh, playing Murugan, chews the scenery every time he is on screen, and makes the most of his screentime. To his credit, even Gowtam treats many of his moments like a massy mainstream film, which often thrives on the presence of an enjoyable antagonist. Even though by the end of it, Murugan’s character too appears underwritten. But for those few sequences, it was good to see everyone on board — from the director to the actor as well as technicians — purely revel in a certain cinematic energy, and not be encumbered by the weight of their own ideas. Too bad Kingdom couldn’t do that for its entire runtime.