 "Vishnu Manchu, Mohan Babu, Akshay Kumar & Prabhas’ Kannappa Movie Review: Big budget, big star cast, but an absolutely baseless & illogical film")
Star cast: Vishnu Manchu, Mohan Babu, R Sarathkumar, Arpit Ranka, Brahmanandam, Brahmaji, Siva Balaji, Kaushal Manda, Rahul Madhav, Devaraj, Mukesh Rishi, Raghu Babu, Preity Mukhundhan and Madhoo
Director: Mukesh Kumar Singh
Wonder why people make movies like this with absolutely no storyline? I am not even asking for closer to reality films, but it should be at least entertaining. Just a huge star cast doesn’t work for a movie to succeed. You need meaty stories for a film to be successful. Just bringing mythology with big stars doesn’t suffice for a movie to be successful. But just making a devotional film, you can’t expect the audience to love it.
For today’s evolved cinema audiences are not at all star-struck like the way they used to be a few years back. And the hero of a film is not the stars, it is the story. Later, other things come in. The narrative of the entire film will bore you to death. Sadly, when Kannappa is a dream project of Vishnu Manchu and sorry to say there is nothing dreamy about it.
When you are reintroducing folklore and devotional legend to our present-day evolved audience, the approach should be a little bit sharper and clearer and not a holy mess, Kannappa.
Kannappa is overstretched beyond the limit. The story is about Thinna, a hunter who doesn’t believe in God at all. Inspired by the history of the Sri Kalahasti temple, the film explores Thinna’s fight against age-old customs, one of them being sacrificing humans in the name of God. He falls in love with a girl from the village played by Preity Mukhundhan. Thinna marries her against the wishes of his family and also the other jungle dwellers. The centre point of the film is how Thinna transforms from a non-believer to a devoted follower of Lord Shiva. As usual like all women’s roles in Telegu films, Preity Mukhundhan’s character is highly sexualised and nothing that is impactful about it. Even Kajal Aggarwal, Akshay Kumar, Prabhas and Mohanlal’s cameos couldn’t save this disastrous film.
The most annoying bit of the film, though, was when Thinna offers his own eyes to the deity.
The movie is overtly long and unnecessarily stretched. The movie lacks a compelling narrative that will engage the audience glued to the screen. Though the look of the movie was good with lush greenery, nothing beyond I would ask the audience to expect from the film. The VFX of the film too sucks. If Mukesh Kumar Singh wanted to give the Baahubali effect in Kannappa, then I must say he has failed disastrously in it. My only advice to all filmmakers is, please don’t make movies like Kannappa.
Rating: 1 (out of 5 stars)
Kannappa is playing in cinemas
WATCH the trailer of Vishnu Manchu, Mohan Babu, Akshay Kumar and Prabhas’ Kannappa here:
Lachmi Deb Roy is the Entertainment Editor of Firstpost, Network18. She reviews films and series with a gender lens. She is a 'Rotten Tomatoes' certified critic. Her interviews are called 'Not Just Bollywood' because she takes a huge interest in world cinema. She has been the winner of the prestigious Laadli Media and Advertising Award for Gender Sensitivity for two consecutive years, 2020 and 2021. OTT over theatrical releases is her preference unless and until it's a King Khan film. She takes interest in fashion, food and art reviews too.