'Kanguva' Review: Wild Ambition, Tame Results In This Repetitive Reincarnation Drama

Director: Siva
Writers: Siva, Adhi Narayana, Madhan Karky
Cast: Suriya, Bobby Deol, Disha Patani, Yogi Babu
Language: Tamil

Even if you’ve entered Kanguva with your expectations managed, you’re still not going to be prepared for the abomination of the film’s first hour. After a brief prologue set in 1070 AD, we move ahead to present-day Goa, where we meet Francis (Suriya) and his gang of bounty hunters. The intended mood is “cool”, the result, kitsch. Though  the idea is  to create the look of a GTA-like video game, we instead get the vision of an older director trying to act young.

And naturally, we get reams of dialogue, featuring slang like “dude”, “bestie”, “darling” and “mate” being thrown around interchangeably. When an irritated Angelina (Disha Patani) wants her friend to shut up, she says, “Cut this BS!” When a joke is delivered, he feels the need to land it with a shot of The Boys meme. And when it’s time for a song to showcase the gang’s decadence (because it’s Goa), we get a song called “YOLO”.

There couldn’t have been a better song title for a reincarnation drama. And that’s because Francis HAS lived at least once before, back in 1070. The film, which meandered aimlessly until then, suddenly gains some sort of focus once it goes back in time.

Here we’re introduced to a place called Anjutheevu, a group of five islands, each with its own clan, sub-culture and history. Explained briefly, we get a sense of the world Siva’s built and what’s at stake before we’re introduced to Kanguvan (Suriya), an upright warrior diametrically-opposite to a conman like Francis. The world-building doesn’t last for too long after this and we’re pushed straight into the world of a family drama, Siva’s most favorite genre.

The period setting, the islands and the lifestyle, all become incidental from thereon. What Kanguva turns into is a movie about a man who is forced to father an adopted child. Take for instance the manner in which we see the two grow close. What the film needed was an external conflict, a challenge to make them come together as a team. For this, the film gives us  a 15-minute action sequence involving a giant crocodile in the middle of a marsh. The aspiration is ambitious but the execution, not so much, because Siva wants Rajamoulian results but without the imagination.

Just as awkward is a longish fight sequence involving a group of women. Until then, the film hadn’t given even a minute of meaningful screentime to any of its female characters. But when this scene plays out, featuring characters we hadn’t heard of until then, you’re able to see the design, as though it’s ticking off a feminist checkbox. It’s like some kind of Bigil, but from Barbaria.

Strangely, even the human connection between Kanguvan and his son never really comes to mean anything. Hidden beneath this layer is the story of a vow so powerful that it connects two people born 1000 years apart, a promise made by Kanguvan that remained unfulfilled for a millenium. But even such ideas are felt only in retrospect. with the actual events on screen not eliciting  any real emotions.

Apart from a handful of images (like the shot of a 100 corpses piled on top of one another), there’s not much that’s visually memorable either. We’ve seen these images before, adding to the already repetitive feeling of watching a bland emotional drama. The fatigue kicks in soon and we’re left feeling that  despite the ambitious budgets,   there’s not much ambition to anything else  onscreen. This was not the return to big screen Suriya must have hoped for.