Why the success is so important? Kesari Chapter2 breakdown

History tells us -

"World will keep praising the hunter's story...

...until Lion holds the pen"

This one anonymous quote is the jist of Kesari Chapter 2. A film that showcases the kind of treatment Indians went through in their own country. Not even considered as humans with a country, but animals in herd.

The movie starts off exactly at point when thousands of innocents are slaughtered at Jallianwala Bagh on 13 April 1919. The reason? were they protesting against an act which was implemented by betraying the whole country during the World War 1? Were they terrorists who wanted to burn down Amritsar? No. THEY WERE INDIANS. That's the only reason. And Dyer also said that he stopped shooting because he ran out of bullets. That was their mindset.

Anybody tells that British have left the country, they have failed, then it's absolutely wrong. The matter of the fact is that they have done more than enough damage in the country by passing on this vile mindset, that makes the new and upcoming generations hate their own country and their civilization.

Why is it so impactful?

The movie is shown to us through the lens of Sir Chettur Shankaran Nair (played by Akshay Kumar). The way the screenplay is written should be a case study for film making schools. Most of the times, films like these do not work and the sole reason is presentation. The presentation looks wither too much bland or too much westernized. The perfect example is Sardaar Udham (yes, dear cinephiles, before you barge at me with your pitchforks, I have discussed more about it later on in this article).

During the starting minutes of the film, we see a rather ignorant Nair, who himself is a British stooge, creating roadblocks for many freedom fighters, and one of them is Kirpal Singh. The dialogue exchange between Kirpal and Nair is fantastic and not only those, dialogues said by all the characters who act as a torchbearer for Shankaran Nair's journey such as Pargat Singh telling him, when Shankaran rebukes his silent protests and encourages to admit himself in Shankaran's school

"Mr Nair, I don't think I will ever go to the school of thought,

YOU BELONG TO! "

Or Dilreet Gill's character telling Shankaran Nair

"Jab deewarein bolne lage

Aur aap chup ho jao

Toh mann mein sawaal uthta hai ki

darasal maut kiski hui hai"

The movie also has a nemesis for Nair (other than General Dyer) in the form of Neville McKinley (R Madhavan), who is shown as a shrewd fox, who would do anything to get Nair's position in the Crown instigated by a personal vengeance against Nair (according to the movie, now I don't know about it's historical accuracy), but at the same time knows where to distance himself from the Crown. The only gripe that remains with the film is that they should have given a screen time to McKinley's character, although I would in no way say that R Madhavan is wasted, the character was a delight to watch.

The movie has many symbolic representations of the historical events and they are very intricately woven into this masterpiece of a screenplay. Like a scene where General Dyer's childhood is shown. The first scene is shown that he is bullied by Indian kids for his stammering, which inculcates a feeling of hatred in him and the second scene where his father is shown cracking a racist joke against Indians and he is showing enjoyimg that joke. Some may feel it as an attempt to humanize that monster, but I have a different opinion. This scenes gives a proper character development to that vile excuse of a human being. He is being bullied by his Indian peers and the only way he shows his anger is by mocking his household, slaughtering thousands in the name of "WHITE MAN'S BURDEN", or brutally thrashing an Indian officer for arriving late (whereas many brits also arrived late, but they had to bear no such consequence). This shows that Reginald Dyer's character was a weak man who had no conscience, and it was the culture of the British which made a monster like Reginald Dyer. I, in no way consider this as whitewashing, but a very subtle and honest attempt to make people learn about mental health. If you want to see whitewashing, then in Sardar Udham, there Dyer says after the massacre "I was not able to sleep the whole night", that movie at that point made Dyer a man repenting his mistake and put all the blame on Micheal O Dwyer, where both of them were equally responsible.

Technically speaking, the movie is magnificient. The set design by Rita Ghosh and the haunting yet vibrant frames captured by Debojeet Ray are praiseworthy. The music given by Shashwat Sachdev is exemplary. After films like Attack and URI, Kesari Chapter 2 is another banger from him.

Karan Singh Tyagi makes you scratch your heads that how can someone score more than maximum marks in his debut directioral. His direction is flawless. With such detailing and screen writing (Amritpal Singh Bindra, who is also one of the producer, has co written this movie along with Tyagi and kudos to him also), he has the potential to carve his name with the likes of Vishal Bharadwaj and Shoojit Sircar.

About the performances, Simon Paisley Day as General Dyer, brings accurate amount of disgust and menace on the table, telling you the kind of performance he has given. Other British actors like Alex O'Nell and Mark Bennington as usual, as the regular white actors of Bollywood do justice to their roles. Krish Rao, a young actor exhudes confidence and simplicity with his act and he is exceptional, also the movie really makes you feel for his character after what he went through. Regina Cassandra lends able support. Amit Sial as the servant of the crown actually had a very important part in the film, and personally, more than Dyer, it was he, whose face I wanted to punch harder, proving what an excellent job he did as an antagonist. This movie was so much good that even someone like Ananya Pandey looked extremely confident in her role. And honestly speaking, I was shocked that how good she actually was in the film. If we remove her self trolling clips from her interviews, then with this kind of calibre, she has a long way to go as an actress. R Madhavan is the show stealer in some major scenes. He is so much efficient as an actor. And you can tell that by looking at his performance in Shaitaan and Kesari Chapter 2. Both are negative characters, still he knows how to maintain the difference between the two characters and that's where he gets the brownie points. Now before we address the elephant in the room, let me tell you something else.

Comparison Dilemma

See, I, in no way want to compare these 2 films, whose base topic is the same and both are excellent movies. But people are doing it since the release, so I a bound to bring this topic. Vicky Kaushal definitely gave it his all and delivered a mind bending portrayal of Udham Singh in a film where the silence was more haunting than the noise in a bleak environment, directed magnificiently by Shoojit Sircar. If we take the commercial point of view (which I know most of the cinephiles are going to ignore coz most of these people don't even have an ounce of respect for the single screen audience), then trust me when I say this (and this is BTW coing from an ardent Sardar Udham movie fan), Sardar Udham is unwatchable for an average cinema going person, who is not familiar with world cinema. My words may seem harsh, but they are true. I am not saying that Kesari Chapter 2 isi some RRR or Pushpa. That is also a very much untouched genre for the masses, but there are many boxes that Kesari Chapter 2 ticked right, which Sardar Udham missed. Again, this was just an opinion. I am telling it again, both are EXCELLENT movies.

Why the success of Kesari Chapter 2 is important?

After the pandemic, we have seen only the success of only one type of cinema and the death of the other type of cinema. Kesari Chapter 2 can be the golden opportunity to revive it. Not that this genre is completely dead, some films like Kashmir Files, Kerala Story, Article 370 are working, but you should be living inside a cave if I need to tell you the reason why they are working. Kesari Chapter 2 is a completely different approach. Yes, it has the sequel tag, but audience is not naive enough, to not know the difference between an sequel and a cash grab. And Kesari Chapter 2 no doubt a cashgrab. Keeping the quality of the film aside, which anyway is superior, the movie was promoted as a sequel of Kesari, a war drama. In which world is a war drama's sequel a courtroom drama? Promoted as a spiritual sequel, although it haa undoubtedly, held on to the spirit of Kesari, this in no way is a sequel.

And now, time to address the elephant in the room, this was Akshay Kumar's 2nd movie of 2025. We know what kind of tragedy his filmography is after covid. Except Sooryavanshi and OMG 2, none of the films have worked. Skyforce was a below average movie, mainly due to the discounts (although Skyforce also had some organic audience which allowed it to enter the 100 crore club as just with the help of incentives, achieving that number is impossible). But Kesari Chapter 2 is something special. While watching the film, I did not find the regular Akshay Kumar who completed his films in 40 days and moves onto his next. This was something different. He was completely transformed into C Shankaran Nair. The scenes where he was supposed to be vulnerable, he excelled those scenes at a different level altogether, the courtroom scenes, where he had to be the beast, along with him, the whole theatre erupted. This was the celebration of Akshay Kumar the actor. Infact, in the penultimate courtroom sequence, he took the film to a different level and the adrenaline rush in his penultimate F*U dialogue was just something else. It comes somewhere near his best performance in last 10 years (reaching the level of Airlift and Sarfira is a mammoth task) And the audience has accepted the film gives a bigger joy. Yes, it is not doing huge numbers, but when you compare the collections of 1st Friday (7.84 crore) and the 2nd Saturday (7.10 crore) the amount of hold tells you that there is appreciation from a section of audience and those audience should return back. Another positive thing is that except the 2 hits, Kesari 2's performance is greater than almost all other Akshay Kumar releases since the pandemic. And let's accept it, he is the only one from the A listers, bringing films at regular intervals and if his films work like this, then it will be a very great news for cinema exhibitors and cinema goers.

Final Word

KESARI CHAPTER 2 is a film which you cannot miss at any cost. That's the final word.