With the Kanchana franchise, which is now about eight years old, Raghava Lawrencce had opened the floodgates to several successful horror-comedies in Tamil cinema. The first two parts worked because it was the beginning of a trend and the audience were intrigued by the films. As filmmakers started milking the genre dry, something innovative was expected and that was missing in Lawrencce-directed Kanchana 2, the latest instalment from the franchise.
The movie, which follows a cliched and dated horror template, suffers heavily due to the lack of a good story. Good acting is also missing, which is to be expected from such films as their sole intention is to scare with sound effects and ghostly elements. But we’ve had so many horror films of late; you wish these films offered better thrills. Some of these films have had great comedy, but slowly the jokes too are failing to keep us entertained. A possessed character beating up innocent characters is not funny anymore.
It was first a transgender woman, played so fittingly by Sarath Kumar, who swore to avenge her killers in Kanchana; then it was the disabled character yearning for revenge as a ghost in Kanchana 2. Lately, all horror stories have been about revenge, and sadly they’ve all been loud, over-the-top and passe, though they’ve been successful at the same time. Maybe that’s why Tamil filmmakers continue to make more horror-comedies, which makes a great combination, provided one knows how to make a genuinely entertaining film that scares and entertains equally.
Lawrencce plays a cameraman in a television company in Kanchana 2, and you typically expect the envelope to be pushed in the sequel, and it definitely. Here’s an adult man who wears diapers, pins slippers and brooms to his bedroom wall to ward off ghosts and sleeps under layers of bed sheets with images of different gods. The makers believe that the idea of pushing the envelope is making the lead character dumber and more likeable. It looked funny when Raghava came running and jumped onto his mother’s hip at the mention of a ghost in the last part, but now it isn’t.
The addition of Taapsee Pannu and Nitya Menen to the cast hardly makes a difference. Initially, the former impresses when she gets possessed but despite the effort Menen has put into making her disabled character called Ganga stand out, you wish the writing was better; you wish Lawrencce hired a writing partner instead of matching steps with his brother in an introduction song for the ghosts.
There are about five ghosts in Kanchana 2, and Lawrencce gets to play all of them. This only proves that he can play any number of characters without adding any value to the story. The visual effects are pitiful, and the climatic fight between two ghosts is a bad rip-off of the most popular series of Hulk versus Superman fights on Youtube.
Kanchana 3 is hinted at the end, and let’s hope it isn’t as bad as Kanchana 2, which is undoubtedly a weak film in the franchise.
