Spoilers ahead…
The film works at two levels. One, we get a huge action spectacle with inventive set pieces. And two, we get a style-filled masala movie, filled with whistle-worthy moments.
Prashanth Neel returns as writer-director in KGF: Chapter 2, starring Yash as the gold-hearted gangster named Rocky. But first, a recap. The first chapter was a Deewar-like story of a young boy coming to Bombay and becoming a famous gangster. And then, he is sent to Karnataka, where he becomes even more famous: he becomes the messiah of the people of a secret mining town called KGF. We met Rocky’s enemies like Shetty bhai in Bombay and Inayat Khalil in Dubai. We met the Indian Prime Minister, a woman whose face was never revealed, a woman who spoke of unleashing the army on Rocky while signing the death warrant of the man she considered “the biggest criminal in India.”
But the film began with a television anchor played by Malavika Avinash. She listens to the KGF story as told by a senior journalist, played by Ananth Nag – and that is the same framing device Prashanth uses in the sequel as well. There’s just one change. The narrator now is Prakash Raj, who plays the Ananth Nag character’s son. I did not realise this while watching Chapter 1, but these conversations provide two things: a breather between the hectically paced events, and they are also a small bit of spoon-feeding for the audience, because the story is so deep and dense. No, let me correct that. The story is fairly uncomplicated. It’s the narrative that’s deep and dense. And we’ll come to this later.
You can read the rest of the review here:
https://www.galatta.com/tamil/movie/review/kgf-2/
And you can watch the video review here:
Copyright ©2022 GALATTA.
Baradwaj Rangan 
Anon
April 14, 2022
BR, did you review chapter 1? I did a search but couldn’t find anything.
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Sri Prabhuram
April 14, 2022
@Anon: In his writeup about the biggest trends in south indian cinema in the past five years, he briefly wrote about KGF: Chapter 1.
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Vikram s
April 16, 2022
BR, great to see this write-up on kgf2. Looking forward to more kannada movie related articles from you.
Rakshith Shetty’s 777Charlie is releasing soon ..
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Abhinav
April 17, 2022
Great film and excellent review. I think Prasanth Neel is kind of a Desi Nolan (‘Desi’ not in a demeaning manner at all). The narrative is guided in an astonishing and somewhat complicated manner (Nolan-esque) , although the story/screenplay underneath is mass masala. Brilliant.
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shaviswa
April 19, 2022
Looks like KGF2 is doing better than Beast in Tamilnadu. Now….that is quite an achievement.
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Mankfan
April 23, 2022
BR surprisingly low comments for a film that is going to be the biggest hit of 2022…I guess your readers are sort of surprised by this review and are now conjuring up reasons to appreciate KGF2.
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Satya
May 1, 2022
Finally watched it. I must admit there are some really interesting narrative choices, like the Toofan song. On one hand, they are showing a re-cap of the first part and on the other hand, the kids of KGF retelling the story of Rocky like a play was such a folklorish moment – as if Rocky has already become a deity there. Even the mother’s grave arriving to KGF and its aftermath was a solid mythical scene.
Having said that, some moments were beyond ridiculous. In the parliament scene, after Rocky arrives with a gun, everybody runs away and Rocky also walks away scott free killing his enemy. This was so over the top, so off, that they literally placed a disclaimer throughout the scene “The Parliament visuals are entirely fictional”. I wonder how he left for KGF from Delhi without being harmed at least once. Also, if not for advancing conflicts in the film, I don’t see any real reason why Rocky spares Adheera in the second half, especially after establishing him as someone who cannot spare any threats (viz. Shetty’s death and the police station scene).
But then, that’s me. That me who thought Garuda’s execution in Part 1 was very well planned and executed. And the end had such a solid moment with the hero’s mother which was dealt brilliantly.
PS. Is it really necessary to go for a KGF 3, especially after providing a proper closure to Rocky and KGF minefields?
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Madan
August 30, 2022
Finally watched pts1 and 2. I sort of agree with Satya’s take. On the one hand, the whole set up of pt1 made me mouth, “poora naam vijay dinanath chauhan”. It was way too reminiscent of AB gangster films and without the moral dialogue that say the Shashi Kapoor character brings to the table in Deewar.
But the more interesting premise of 2 was let down by the too-frenetic execution. There was much that could have been done with the Raveena Tandon character but it was virtually squeezed into the last hour.
And both Adheera and Rocky sparing each other made about as much sense as Khudabaksh extracting a promise from Firangi to look after Zahira right after Firangi ‘fatally’ betrayed him.
Speaking of, I didn’t even find pt1s and 2 much better, if at all, than ToH. ToH maybe lacked the tempo and fury of KGF but had a better story to tell.
The lack of a strongly defined purpose (though Neel tries to solve this with the ‘maa’ flashback) combined with the overt nihilism of Rocky makes it very difficult to care about him.
And this brings me to a confusion I have noted before in modern masala movies, especially Tamil and Telugu. In an interview, Neel mentioned Scarface as an example of larger than life gangster characters. But the thing is Al Pacino is just the lead actor in it, not the ‘hero’. Whether it’s FFC, Scorsese or DePalma, they were never confused about the moral arc. They made films about gangsters and identified and empathised with them but they didn’t lionize them, they didn’t whitewash them. The moment you take a very grey character like Rocky and insert him in a film that’s mass on steroids, all the greyness goes out of the window.
Vijay Dinanath Chauhan has a strong argument to justify why he is the way he is, even if we cannot as the audience ultimately agree wit it. There is only a poor and half hearted attempt at providing this justification on the part of Rocky and this is constantly contradicted with messages of unadulterated nihilism like greed is progress.
Ultimately, it is a film with strong technical values which for that reason is engaging to watch while it lasts but leaves very little to take away when it’s over. I said nearly the same thing about Vikram but in comparison to KGF, Vikram feels like old school melodrama. And in hindsight, I can see why Vikram got such positive appreciation. Because if KGF2 is the biggest gigabuster of the year, even beating RRR, then Vikram’s success feels more than well deserved.
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anonymousviolin20
August 30, 2022
Madan:
As someone who was caught up in the hype and really enjoyed part 2 in the theaters, I have to agree with your takeaway.
4 months later, and I feel no desire to engage with this film again, unlike other blockbusters this year (RRR/Vikram).
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Madan
August 30, 2022
anonymousviolin: Maybe this will be the way forward. To make a big spectacle, especially with large doses of machismo, that get the audience hyped up while watching on the big screen. But without having the replay value that we have come to expect from good movies. It has been rather difficult to get people to go to theaters to watch, so I am unable to fault filmmakers too much either.
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Aman Basha
August 30, 2022
@Madan: I might have believed what you said, but I saw Sita Ramam in a theatre with a good crowd on a weekday in its 4th week. Do listen to the songs, SPB’s son does a fantastic job channeling the great man.
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madhusudhan194
August 30, 2022
@Aman Basha: Also Thiruchitrambalam. Saw it at a packed PVR screen in the film’s second weekend. I think well made dramas will continue to do well theatrically within their scale amd reach if promoted the right way. But these films won’t make 300 crores. Only the big star macho action films have that kind of reach.
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Aman Basha
August 30, 2022
@madhusudhan19: Both these films are doing extraordinarily well for their budgets and with their trending. For Sita Ramam opening at 3 crores with no big name stars in Telugu to end at 80 crores is mind boggling.
I will bet you that in September, the shock box office story in the North will be the glorious run of Sita Ramam’s dubbed Hindi version. I am so absolutely sure of this, that I will wager anything on it.
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Madan
August 31, 2022
Aman Basha : I know Thiruchitrambalam is doing well at the BO but didn’t realize Sita Raman did good numbers as well. So yes, maybe there is hope at least on the regional front. None of the smaller Bollywood films are doing well at the BO (but none of them received the acclaim that both these films did).
As a side effect of taking wife to Vikram, she won’t come along for Thiruchitrambalam. 😦 Told her it’s romance and not dishoom-dishoom but it’s a hard pass. Oh well!
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madhusudhan194
August 31, 2022
It’d be interesting to see how Natchathiram nagargiradhu does in TN. It has a strong indie vibe and has got great reviews all around. It looks quite radical by Indian cinema standards and we have to see if it sells tickets. Both Sita Ramam and Thiruchitrambalam were quite mainstream.
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Abhinav
September 8, 2022
I think one of the reasons KGF2 was such a humongous hit among the masses is that it is a film that represented the frustration and subjugation of the proletariat and their subsequent hope of being able to crush the elites and the ultra powerful. Rocky is a representative hero of the masses, one among them, who being fearless and having undergone all tortures from childhood emerged capable to single handedly take on the very biased system.
And unlike a known superstar, say like Vijay or Ajith in TN, or Salman in Hindi, Yash being an unknown face for most of Indians (along with a knowledge that he is a young superstar in Kannada) his character’s rise seemed more organic.
And this wasn’t just a mass cinema, but with doses of cinematic brilliance. The story told in the form of an elaborate epic saga, and in a stylish, complex and modern way by Prasanth Neel made it into a rage for the masses.
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Kaushik Bhattacharya
October 20, 2022
Finally finished watching both parts (actually KGF in Sept and KGF 2 yesterday) and along the lines of what Satya and Madan have said, I actually found part 1 more watchable and emotionally engaging than part 2. Part 2 just felt like Scarface on steroids, and unlike BR, I thought the acting was pretty awful. Granted that in this kind of a film and with this narrative style you want people to overplay, but I found Sanjay Dutt and Raveena Tandon hammy in a really annoying way and while Yash was good in patches, he really lacks any sort of range. Achyuth Kumar is also heavily under-utilised.
In hindsight, and while the two films have enough differences I think Pushpa was better made as an overall film (not just cinema) and am looking forward to Pushpa 2 and am certainly hoping there’s no KGF Chapter 3!!
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