Akshay Kumar’s war epic ‘Kesari’ is as subtle as the overwhelming saffron-coloured turban that he sports in the battle scenes.
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00:00This is Manjusha Radhakrishnan from Gulf News Tabloid and I've just been to watch
00:04Akshay Kumar's battle movie Kesari.
00:11It's a period epic set in the 19th century where 21 Sikh soldiers who wear turbans
00:17take on 10,000s of Afghan invaders. The Sikh soldiers are a part of the British regiment
00:22who were colonizing India at that point. We have Akshay Kumar who plays a very brave Sikh soldier
00:28called Havildar Ishar Singh and how he is this true soldier. He's so brave that he tells his
00:35band of men who are grossly outnumbered when they take on the Afghan soldiers that when an Afghan
00:41soldier, when your enemy is wounded make sure that you pour water in his mouth. Now that's the
00:46kind of patriotism that is displaced and the kind of goodness that you simply don't understand. The
00:51movie is as subtle as the overwhelming saffron colored turban that he wears on his head. Everything
00:56is actually pummeled into you for a matter of two hours and 45 minutes. Does it get tedious? Of
01:02course it does. At one point the pace is so over bloated and it's so stretched out that you wonder
01:08where this film is headed. Akshay Kumar as always is convincing and he's very stoic in the role of
01:14a Sikh soldier. The scenes, his body language, although his beard, his false beard seems to have
01:20a life of its own, he seems quite earnest in his act and therefore he has even enough charisma
01:26to actually pull the scene through. But is the movie revetting? I'm not very sure because how
01:31long can you see this entire battle between 21 soldiers, the underdogs, taking on 10,000s of
01:38Afghan invaders. Now the problem with this movie is the extreme. There's no grey in this movie,
01:44in this war film, there's no grey absolutely. I mean either it's black or white people. For instance
01:49the ones represented by Akshay Kumar, they're such good men that you only see goodness in them.
01:56There's not even a mean bone in their body which is very unrealistic because often you expect
02:02people who go through bloody scenes, who lose their mates at war to be slightly cynical at
02:06least. But here it's just they're very idealistic, they're very nice to people which does not make
02:13any sense. Whereas the Afghan invaders, I've never seen such stereotypical representation
02:18of a community. Here they're all barbaric, they're all mean, they're all patriarchal. There
02:23is a scene where the Afghan invaders are pelting a woman to death and want to behead her. It looks
02:29staged. And then the scene where Akshay Kumar's character comes swooping to her rescue being the
02:36good man, that scene looks like you need to suspend belief. The climax is very well shot
02:41although it's very long. I mean the action scene seems very believable. The kind of sparring
02:45between the Sikh soldiers who are outnumbered when the Afghan invaders try to take over their
02:51fort is quite suspenseful and it's loaded with drama. But that's not enough to keep us hooked
02:59from the beginning to the end. If you're looking for a story that has nuanced performances and
03:06that showcases the futility of war, then you're bucking up the wrong bunch of good men. Because
03:11here you have only men who are very very good and enemies who are really very very bad. I wish
03:17director Anup Singh had mixed things up and given even the rivals and the enemies a bit of leeway,
03:23a bit of credit. Here it was just like although the Sikh soldiers actually are defeated in the
03:28war, they emerge the heroes because of their bravery. All that is great perhaps in history
03:33book but when it gets translated onto the big screen, there's not much to go on with.
03:38I've gone with 2.5 out of 5. For my full review go to gulfnews.com slash tabloid