By Harish Prakash
Let’s start where KRK begins. Rambo’s many uncles and an aunt remain unmarried because of a supposed curse running in the family that marriages will lead to mishaps. This happens as soon as Rambo is born. His father falls off a water tower and dies and his mother falls ill and gets bedridden. His many uncles and an aunt are hence left unmarried and longing for love. Later on, we see them rooting for Rambo after he has grown up and fallen in love with not one person, but two. In the end, the many uncles and an aunt get married since the curse is supposedly lifted because both Rambo’s lovers agree to marry him.
As logic defying and absurd as it may seem, nobody describes the movie as a story of Rambo’s many single relatives who eventually get married. These characters are there to probably justify Rambo’s supposed societal perversion, which is, loving and marrying two women at the same time. But why do we have these half a dozen relatives we hardly care for? Maybe to raise the stakes for Rambo to get married. I wonder what KRK would be like without these forgettable characters. Couldn’t Rambo just love two women and be indecisive on who to settle for irrespective of family pressures?
Let’s move to Kanmani’s backstory. Her parents are both dead. She has a younger sister and a disabled brother who she takes care of, while making ends meet. She also has a large house inherited from her father but it will only be handed to her once she gets married. So, Kanmani desperately hunts for a husband. She eventually meets Rambo and somehow gets the house with his help. What if Kanmani just seeks love and finds Rambo? Rambo in this scenario is a person she connects with and is not her savior.
And finally, Katija’s backstory. Her father isn’t well and for some reason she’s forced to date and party with a guy she doesn’t like. Katija connects with Rambo who helps rescue her from the bad guy she is dating. Why does someone who can take 50 lakhs from her bank account and give it off to a stranger (Rambo) appear to have no agency in who she wants to date? What if she just falls out of love with a guy and falls in love with Rambo. And what if KRK is a movie about three strangers in the present and not about their past or backstories.
If you have come this far, you either agree with how pointless and superficial backstories are in a 160 min movie, or are questioning my sanity for asking so much from a movie meant to merely entertain. Entertain it does. But it also borders on tediousness. Maybe keeping it simple would help. Not everything and everybody needs motivation or a backstory. Two (in KRK’s case, three) people just meet and connect. And that itself is a sufficient enough movie plot. For well etched backstories, a web series with 10 or more episodes might work, in which characters are not bad background props, but stay awhile and offer something meaty to the plot.
Baradwaj Rangan 
brangan
May 3, 2022
or are questioning my sanity for asking so much from a movie meant to merely entertain.
This is a point I have been talking about a lot to people over the past few days. They say, “Padam fun da. Logic laam paakaathey.”
But I guess it’s an inbuilt character of cinephiles/critics that you have an “analytical brain” and an “audience brain”. The latter for me was quite entertained, even as the former kept asking various questions about the writing choices, etc.
The most brilliant thing about KRK for me is that it borders on the absurd (quite deliberately). I have not seen a Tamil film take so many changes of tone — sometimes from scene to next scene. It is so fresh and new in its conception and writing and feel (a far cry from the leering, wink-wink Bhagyaraj films or the ultra-serious Balachander dramas of the same theme) that it is an “entertaining” film that begs you to “analyse” it structurally.
Most issues in the film (like some repetition) I can live with. But the one fix that would have made the film work better for me is a serious scene or two where both the K’s react to the discovery about Rambo two-timing them.
Yes, he is “pure” (there is no hint of sex in the film from the man; it only comes from a woman, which itself is nice). He is “innocent”. Yes, he has been so deprived of chocobars (metaphorically and in reality) that when he gets two, he grabs them with both hands.
The audience understands this.
But I would have liked the 2 K’s to deal with this a little more seriously (in just one scene), especially Kanmani — because how can she trust this man with her brother now? Instead, they begin cat-fighting over him almost immediately.
That’s the one change that would have made the film sit properly in my head. (And this film, with its tonal shifts, CAN handle the odd serious scene.)
Of course, you could argue that the “immediate cat-fighting” is a part of the film’s absurdity — and sure, I can see that POV even if I don’t accept it fully.
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vijay
May 3, 2022
“The most brilliant thing about KRK for me is that it borders on the absurd (quite deliberately). I have not seen a Tamil film take so many changes of tone ”
but in your original review you caption the review as being “tonally all over the place” and was problematic..didnt get the impression that you actually enjoyed it..
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vijay
May 3, 2022
Harish, I actually feel that 160-min running time is the bane of many films..if some of them could be just a 2-hr affair, they can remove all that extra fluff and be more focused. Most romcoms in Hollywood have a 100-130 min running time and even then they are being sometimes ripped for being overlong..
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brangan
May 3, 2022
I did enjoy it. I said there were some terrific laugh-out-loud scenes.
But I also found the film more interesting to analyse than to simply “enjoy”, and in my comment above I included a bit of the analysis I would have included i the review had I been given more time.
The change I have mentioned above is what would have brought “the stakes” into the film, for me. (I said in the review that the stakes were non-existent.)
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Enna koduka sir pera
May 3, 2022
The two Ks not reacting was also the main problem for me. Also, the other issue was treating this platonic love as the purest form of love. How long will Tamil movies continue giving that moral high ground for platonic love!
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brangan
May 3, 2022
Enna koduka sir pera: Regarding the platonic love, I think Vignesh was forced into that corner because his hero was “innocent” and “pure” and all that. Otherwise, Rambo would come across like a creep.
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madhusudhan194
May 3, 2022
“The two Ks not reacting was also the main problem for me.” – i think till the big fight happens in the second half, they’re under the impression that he had the disorder and that’s why ended up loving for both of them. When they find out that it’s a lie, they go ballistic.
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vijay
May 3, 2022
BR, I did get that you enjoyed the film in bits from your review. But when you say “Tonally, the film is all over the place. I never believed that either Nayanthara or Samantha was truly in love with Vijay Sethupathi – so the stakes are non-existent.” as the caption, it doesnt exactly sound like a ringing endorsement of the tonal shifts, leave alone them being ‘brilliant’..taking into account your current stance, this caption could have instead been “even though the tonal shifts are interesting, the non-existent stakes make it less engaging”..or something along those lines. As it stands, its a bit misleading.
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Enna koduka sir pera
May 3, 2022
@madhuaudhan94 – they go ballistic for one min and in the next couple of scenes agree to marry him to help his family. This trajectory is not convincingly shown
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brangan
May 4, 2022
Thanks for that comment vijay, I kept thinking about it. It reminded me that apart from analysing the film, I should also put out my opinion in a stronger, clearer manner.
I wish I had written what I had in that comment, actually 😀
Damn these times and their demand for instant reviews. But glad I am still around 🙂
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harishprakashhp
May 4, 2022
Dear BR,
Maybe you could write two reviews – an instant one and a delayed one. The delayed one talks about all the stuff you didn’t talk about in the instant one. Like the movie dissection you do in Ask(ing) BR 🙂
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bluestork
May 5, 2022
@harishprakashhp kaathuvaakula rendu review, lol
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