KGF Chapter 1 - Why this flick didn't work for me.

Expectations lead to disappointments. How true is this statement!

Yet, I expected that a big Kannada movie coming out after a long time with the industry having produced quite a few signs of having started its march towards maturity over the last decade, a movie that had succeeded wildly, had to be worth my time.

I was upbeat about watching the movie and my friend booked tickets when my semester exams were on. I also went to watch it the second time because my other group of friends hadn't watched it. I thought there was something wrong with me when others adored the film so much and I didn't have much affinity towards the film. When I watched it for the second time, I deplored the film even more (Sorry for all Yash fans out there).

I went with an open mind. I had a fully open mind. Problem is, my eyes, my ears and my sensibilities were open too.

What a garish, immature nightmare of a movie experience.

All the hype for what? Loud, narration supported, over the top dialogue driven diatribe?

How much does the hero have to be built up? Is he that powerless in our eyes even after we have been sold his immense abilities twenty times?

I can tolerate all the flying bodies and slow motion and shows of power. But the same old unfit, oversized, half drunk goons with bad teeth? Okay I can take those as well. This is probably the best the stunt union in the state could provide. Now, how many times would people standing with guns at point blank range have to be beaten up by the hero before one of them can pull the trigger?

And how many times would he have to mouth profound dialogues to fools who get beaten up mercilessly a hundred times? Okay, these all come from high expectations. My fault.

What about the narrative? The story? The honesty in the voice of the teller? Forgive those of us who want to root for the hero and relate to him. This guy needs no help. Even his Mum tells him he should galvanize a lot of people to join him and bring about change. But he goes at it all alone, all the time. Against everybody. He does not need our support! All he wants are the hooting masses that just love spectacle that seems to match those of movies from the more acclaimed industries.

Yash does deliver, in oodles. He has presence, in oodles. But he delivers the same thing over and over again, and his character has no vulnerabilities, except when a dollop of sentiment is hammered into him when he thinks of his mom. But she comes as thankful punctuation at times when we become tired of all those bassy punch dialogues. He makes a promise to his mother to become rich! Rich, not righteous, not rowdy, but rich. In order to reach his goal though he has to do a lot of evil things, which neither he enjoys nor shirks from.

The heroine is the quintessential chick who appears in commercial flicks, easily manipulated by men. The treatment of her character clearly made me think of how women were treated on New Years Eve on the streets of Bangalore. They are seen as flesh, just there to provide flesh. Not flesh to the story, but flesh to try and attract us to the trap of this hammering on the senses. There was absolutely no need for an item song by Tamannah Bhatia who dances to the reprised version of an old item song! Item-song-ception!

This isn't a hate post for either KGF or the KFI as a whole. I liked movies like Rangitaranga and asked a few of my North Indian friends to watch the movie.

Film makers need to realise the importance of good, believable content. Sure, commercial movies are here to stay. This doesn't mean directors can produce such immature content which even 10-year olds would have a laugh at.