Review of Dulquer Salmaan’s Tamil/Telugu movie Kaantha (available multilingual on Netflix)

Dulquer Salmaan’s latest Tamil/Telugu movie `Kaantha’ is an interesting thriller murder mystery with the backdrop of the Tamil industry of the 1950s, with claims of family members of its being loosely based on the biography of the star of the Tamil Industry in the early 1950s M. K. Thyagaraja Bhagavathar.  It traces the ego clashes and one-upmanship between an established director played by Samuthirakani and an upcoming star played by Dulquer and the debutant heroine, played by Bhagyashree, caught in the crossfire between the two giants.   The type of clash the director and rising star had, the director not tolerating the interference of the star and the star was more bothered about his image and how the public would perceive his role and interfering in the work of the director.   The show down going to the extent of the star trying to throw the director out of the movie and he himself taking charge to finish the movie and unsuccessful attempt by the director to harm the hero by attempts on his life.   The South Indian audience can relate this fictional story to MGR, NTR, ANR, Shivaji, growing larger than life and directors finding it difficult to tailor-make their scripts suiting to their images.  

The slow-moving plot picks up and becomes racy after the murder of the heroine and the entry of Rana as the investigating officer.    The needle of suspicion keeps moving from one person to another, present in the studio, including the hero and the director and others outside the studio but related to the hero.  Even after the culprit is revealed the movie ends with an unexpected but interesting twist.   

Dulquer has once again put in an excellent performance; he impresses more and more with each outing.   It’s a challenging role for a young actor to reprise the role of a hero of the 1950s, the body language, the acting style of those days etc.   The Telugu audience will recollect his role of Gameni Ganeshan in Mahanati. Whenever people criticise and condemn the nepo kids, one should remember stars like Dulquer (son of Malayalam top star Mammootty), Ranbir, who, despite being labelled as nepo kids, put their best performances and proved themselves on their merit.    Samuthirakani too gave a powerful performance as an egoistic director who expects everyone, including top stars follow his commands like school-going kids.   Bhagyashree was refreshing and innocent as per the demands of the role.   Though with limited talent, Rana does well in support roles and is slowly proving to be like Akshey Khanna of the Telugu industry.  

Overall, an interesting thriller, and not a run of mills movies, and I give 4 out of 5, 0.5 for Dulqer's super performance in a challenging role.

 

S. Prabhakar

14.12.25