Kannappa movie review: Vishnu Manchu's ambition cannot fully save this tediously long saga

Indian Express

7 hours ago

Kannappa Movie Review & Rating: If you walk into a screening of Kannappa a few minutes late, there's a good chance you'll think that the film is actually a cosplay staged by Indians living somewhere abroad.
Garish costumes, equally weird body art and piercings, loud shamans performing witchcraft and sacrifices, and a configuration that includes five different clans from centuries ago sharing one vast piece of land – all of this and so much more resembles a kind of pageantry that one spots in amateurish skits. Yet, director Mukesh Kumar Singh urges us to take all of it seriously as he plods through a story that is still quite far from finding its groove.
Kannappa tells the tale of the eponymous icon from Hindu mythology, revered for his unwavering devotion to Lord Shiva. But before attaining that status, he lived the life of an atheist hunter named Thinnadu (played by Vishnu Manchu) who dismissed and blasphemed against each of his tribe's religious practices. The warrior in him stood stubborn against idol worshipping of any kind until a divine intervention struck him, imploring him to find God in the self-manifested vayulingam present deep inside the forests nearby.
The story of Kannappa has been told on screen several times, and to great results. HLN Simha's Bedara Kannappa (1954) featured Dr. Rajkumar in a performance marked by earnestness and deep commitment while Bapu's Telugu iteration nearly two decades later, starring Krishnam Raju, achieved resounding success through its rooted yet more cinematic portrayal. Each interpretation has had a different thematic focus and storytelling priority, and Mukesh Singh's Kannappa (2025) fittingly aspires to go a few notches above its predecessors. Where the trouble lies is that his attempt never really feels tethered to the milieu that the story emerges from, and it ends up mistaking visual spectacle for creative ambition.
The most glaring of missteps occurs in how the tribal community, at large, is represented. Thinnadu is said to belong to the Chenchu tribe that is known for its many unique cultural characteristics (now struggling against steep modernisation) but Kannappa cruelly exoticises them to an extent that it feels campy and caricatured. Characters, especially the women, are seen in costumes heavily sensualised in the name of them being 'tribal'. The bad guy is introduced atop a huge mound of corpses as his eerie occult world breathes savagery around him. The mountains, the meadows, the rivers and practically every element of the film's physical landscape scream foreign location; Kannappa is supposed to have been extensively shot in New Zealand and the makers go the extra mile to showcase their reach and budget.
The combined result of all this is that the aesthetics don't allow us to feel the essence of the story until quite late into the proceedings. This also means that Vishnu Manchu, despite his visible devotion to the self-designed dream role, is left restlessly bouncing around as the film goes about finding some kind of a rhythm.
The first half is predominantly weighed down by the triteness described above but there occurs a juncture in the narrative when things do notably come together. At its heart, Kannappa is about the trials of faith and how a non-believer sheds his arrogance to embrace personal transformation – so, when the screenplay (also credited to Vishnu) does come to its own for a brief while, it throws up a few pleasant surprises that salvage an otherwise turgid retelling of mythology.
What works in its favour is a bunch of cameos and special appearances (no spoiler that superstars Mohanlal, Prabhas and Akshay Kumar are on offer here) that are staged and timed well, leading to sequences that contextually anchor the film and are also memorable in their own ways. One of these impressive portions even manages to throw up poignant questions regarding caste and the right to access divinity first-hand, as Thinnadu's innocent views combat the purity-pollution dogma of a Brahmin priest.
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Vishnu Manchu puts his best foot forward but he is still found wanting as a performer during the climactic emotional scenes. Preity Mukhundhan as Nemali gets something to play with, but her role also feels exploitative given its objectified framing. Senior actors, and there's a whole gamut of them here, R. Sarathkumar, Mukesh Rishi, Madhoo and others aren't really challenged, and they deliver exactly what's asked of them.
Ultimately, Kannappa remains incoherent for most parts, and the disjointed storytelling leaves a lasting dent in it. If the unimaginative world-building, compounded by some high-level hammy acting, becomes its chief shortcoming then the lack of narrative urgency damages things further. In fact, it feels apparent that the makers are hesitant to commit to a full-fledged mythology experience for today's audience, and that second-guessing shows in how the story's most significant stretch arrives painfully late into the 182-minute runtime. It shines fleetingly, particularly when it becomes aware of its emotional core, and the finale does rise to a fitting crescendo. But those highs are scattered, and the misfires far outnumber the successes.
Kannappa movie cast: Vishnu Manchu, Prabhas, Mohanlal, Akshay Kumar, Kajal Aggarwal, Mohan Babu, R Sarathkumar, Brahmanandam, Brahmaji
Kannappa movie director: Mukesh Kumar Singh
Kannappa movie rating: 2.5 stars