The concept of the chosen one is established early on, during the cold open of Kingdom wherein you are witness to a massacre that takes place in the 1920s by the hands of the British who land at the place of Srikakulam for gold. It is an interesting setup given how a dying king assures his people of a descendent, who would at some point double up as their messiah. With this germ, you see the drama time leaping to the early 90s wherein you are introduced to an innocent-looking constable Soori (Vijay Deverakonda) who is searching for his missing elder brother. Almost instantly you realise that this would be the emotional hinge around which the story would revolve around, but I wasn’t prepared for the shifting ‘germ’ of the narrative here.

The biggest issue that I had with the writing was the structure of the narrative. Notice how I have used the word ‘germ’ twice, almost explicitly highlighting it too? The reason is simple – the germ that started with the concept of a chosen one shifts to a sibling emotion bond, while later further shifting base to a weapon cartel in Sri Lanka. There is a tribe angle to the mix who are subjected to the atrocities of Jaffna-staged Tamilians while being refused a safe passage to India. It almost felt like a mixture of a lot of things, packaged in a derivative screenplay that missed out on the emotional core of the characters. For me, that was the sibling bond, even as Soori is coaxed into a covert operation to spy on the cartel and subsequently meet his brother Siva (Satyadev) who is currently in prison for the same.

The drama is an amalgamation of multiple set-pieces that are beautiful shot and executed. Be it the action sequence set in jail that has the protagonist exuding a raw intensity before getting to meet his brother for the first time. Elsewhere, another thrilling sequence with respect to capturing the gold from the airbase including a boat sequence makes its presence felt. You can also read between the lines and notice how there are parallel themes in play between the past and the present – the capture of the gold from the ones in power (the British in the past, and the authorities in the present), the conflict of a woman not getting to see her child just because women aren’t allowed to step out of the Divi island as imposed by the ruthless antagonist Murugan (Venkitesh VP; woeful one-tone with the characterization too) – a direct parallel to how Soori’s widowed mother hasn’t seen her first child for an eternity now. But these themes are lost in the overstuffed nature of the drama that is confused on what it stands for.

The covert operation per se has to be the most loosely executed sequence, that unfortunately forms the connecting thread of the drama. At a point, I did get a feeling that the character conducting this Op (no, not Kay Kay Menon), doesn’t have clarity on how to proceed, thereby creating an extempore with multiple ‘moles’ in the tribal group. Even the exchange of information of Soori’s innocence comes across as incompetent on the part of the Sri Lankan army, given how he is shown to survive a bullet onslaught. And in all of this, the love angle between Soori and Madhu (Bhagyashri Borse) is not only half-baked but lacks a coherence in the context of the drama.

The issue with the second hour is that it doesn’t wish to elevate the wavelength of the drama at any given point, seldom shifting gears and unfolding at the same pace. The urgency arising from a potential conflict for Soori in having to choose between his brother or his nation, is hardly established, a feature that is also linked to the poor characterization of Siva, Soori’s brother. Hence, the emotional core between these characters is so skewed, that even a major turning point in the saga just before the final act didn’t make me care enough for either of the two characters. Yes, the set-piece of the first massacre is shot beautifully, followed by a rampant and raw counter-attack that follows soon after. But when the emotions don’t stay their ground, these set-pieces feel hollow. And that is a feeling that I got. Also, I don’t know what the fetish is of the Telugu filmmakers (and at times Tamil too) to break a story into two films – some stories might be justified, but you can’t have every other film going that route. At this point, it is a classic case of going that route for the heck of it, and the results are far too frustrating than ever before! The screenplay has moments that work in isolation but it never holistically comes together, making it surface-level and overstuffed.