King of Kotha movie review: Dulquer Salmaan-starrer is a disappointment that is visually stunning

Cast: Dulquer Salmaan, Shabeer Kallarakkal, Aishwarya Lekshmi, Prasanna, Gokul Suresh, Chemban Vinod Jose, Nyla Usha Director: Abhilash Joshiy “Stab the body and it heals, but injure the heart and the wound lasts a lifetime,” said Mineko Iwasaki. A former geisha. While watching Dulquer Salmaan-starrer King of Kotha, I was reminded of this. The central theme of the film is love, friendship and betrayal; so initially my expectation was to experience the bite of betrayal, the gut-wrenching heartbreak and the thrill of revenge through the film. Revenge, especially was supposed to be exciting. After all, Raju, the anti-hero of this film is a ruthless rowdy turned assassin who is infamous for his kills. Imagine the million ways in which one could exact revenge for betrayal, especially when the story is set in the 1990s at the heartland of underworld. The voyeur in me expected to vicariously live through King of Kotha. Instead, everything felt insipid. It started with an underwhelming portrayal of intense emotions. Let’s start with the romance between Raju and Thara (Aishwarya Lekshmi). We are supposed to believe that this is an all-changing kind of love, one that influences Raju to curb his illegal activities relating to drugs. He is head over heels in love with her, and initially, it looks like she is interested. Of course, reality comes crashing, and she realizes that at the end of the day he is a cold-blooded murderer whose life is ruled by his temper. So from exciting to distasteful, their relationship takes a turn and it spells heartbreak for our hero. However, all that we see is Raju drunk and passed out. Oh yes, he does swear at her initially for having a change of heart, because how dare she, but that’s about it. Similarly, the bond between Raju and his sister Rithu (Anikha Surendran). Raju supposedly loves his sister to bits and would anything for her. This includes taking on his mother and father if they were to ever take discipline too far. However, this bond never has time to breath on screen. One scene of the two of them hugging during a football match, and one of Raju and Ritu cutting cake on her birthday is all we get. The voice-over that establishes the depth of each relationship with our main lead is nothing but stale and the entire movie-watching experience turns monotonous because of the same. We now come to the heart of the film, and this is the friendship between Kanna and Raju. The fact that this relationship will take centre stage is clear, but at no point are we invested in this relationship. Raju repeatedly expresses that his most favourite person in the world is Kanna, but this is never reciprocated clearly. So from the very beginning, we know that Kanna is not the nicest friend, and his intention lies in making it big in the underworld. The betrayal doesn’t have the intended bite. Let’s take the legendary film Annamalai, for instance. The film’s emotional core — of Annamalai being betrayed by his closest friend, and wanting to exact revenge — is similar to King of Kotha. The betrayal in the Rajinikanth film felt personal, and so as audiences, we were invested in the outcome of the whole revenge-seeking exercise. The absence of this is what really brings King of Kotha down for me. The only high that I personally experienced in the film is because of the brilliant cinematography and promising music. The film as a whole, however, has left me disappointed because here is a film that could have gone big with its bromance and noir treatment, but all we experienced was shallow mass moments, and scenes strung together to make a passable story. If the film had as much of an emotional depth as Dulquer Salmaan ’s one dialogue that explains his love for Aishwarya Lekshmi’s Thara — we would have probably had a winner. Rating: 2 (out of 5 stars) King of Kotha is playing in cinemas near you