This picture’s surely got me intrigued to pick up the book,
@raghupalat &
@pushpapalat’s The Case That Shook the Empire. The reverse would have served no entertainment purpose, personally.
For, while the film is on, your eyes are really glued to the turns in the case, and the sparring matches in the courtroom drama.
The plot is tight as a three-piece suit—even if you’ll excuse the characters (
@ActorMadhavan,
@AmitSial) in this film wearing them in Bombay’s Colaba, while
@MasabaG does a sweet li’ jazz/cabaret number (nice touch, there)!
Credit for the fact that this talk-heavy picture holds your attention, through and through, must foremost go to the debutant writer-director
@karanstyagi.
I don’t what it is—perhaps the film industry’s stuck between coteries and CVs—you barely come across untested filmmakers killing it on the big screen, of late.
This one’s a notable exception.
I understand Jallianwala Bagh has featured already in a Hindi series (The Waking of a Nation) and film (Sardar Udham), lately. But you can also see why it continues to inspire.
Look at the issues involved—unlawful detentions by the state; government hiding death tolls; upholders of law openly running amok against dissenters/protestors…
Besides the unimaginable tragedy, Jallianwala remains relevant forever.
#KesariChapter2Review👇🏽
#AkshayKumar #RMadhavan
The same dastardly event, i.e. the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of April 13, 1919, has been dramatised in different ways in films, from Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi (1982) to Shoojit Sircar’s Sardar Udham (2021).
While the latter recreates the genocide, in a bloodily detailed, long-drawn sort of way, Ram Madhvani’s series The Waking of a Nation (2025) deliberately avoids the explicit visuals altogether.
And that tells you all about the tone of a film/series, right away. As with Kesari Chapter 2, similarly centred on the said episode.
Wherein, upon the firing-orders of General Reginald Dyer (Simon Paisley Day), the first bullet, almost sized like a torpedo, goes off in slow motion, hitting its target, in the packed Amritsar park.
Merciless mayhem follows, while you find a li’l boy you’ve just made onscreen acquaintance with, screaming under a heap of dead bodies, that his hand struggles through, to wave out in the air.
Kesari Chapter 2 is a mainstream, emotional, historical drama. Which is inevitably the most effective way for a film/story to travel to widest audiences.
That said, there’s nothing seemingly hysterical about it. Not a moment that you’ll cringe. It’s more likely to draw critical acclaim. This is rare.
Such is the power-packed, uncluttered, uncomplicated storytelling—building scene over scene, twists over turns, and performances to top the other.
Already, there’s something ironic about this film titled as an official sequel to Anurag Singh’s Kesari (2019)—why’s that?
Review link in bio👇🏽Kesari Chapter 2: ‘Truly, zubaan kesari!’