Cast: Dulquer Salmaan, Aishwarya Lakshmi, Prasanna, Gokul Suresh and Shabeer Kallarakal
Director: Abhilash Joshiy
After watching Malayalam actor Dulquer Salmaan in soft lover boy roles in Telugu films like ‘Mahanati’ and ‘Sita Ramam,’ Telugu audiences would be surprised to watch him as a dreaded gangster role.
Probably, Dulquer wanted to play a regular action hero who delivers punchlines and mercilessly decimates his villains by piercing knives into their necks and hearts. However, the action episodes turn gory at times, similar to what happens in a masala Telugu or Tamil potboiler where logic goes for a toss and only heroic acts are sustained.
King of Kotha Plot:
A youngster (Dulquer) dislikes his thug father and lives for his ladylove (Aishwarya Lekshmi), and he is also happy with his friends. But his life takes a serious turn when he gets to know that his lover has cheated on him, while his close friend (Shabeer) has joined hands with drug peddlers. The story is a familiar plot of friendship, romance, deceit, and vendetta. Director Abhishek is unable to weave an interesting screenplay and endlessly drags conflict between the hero and the villain.
The director banks more on gory and overdose of action over emotional play among characters. For the unversed, Malayalam movies are known for their novel stories and refreshing conflict among characters, so a crass masala movie featuring a Malayalam film star comes as a huge surprise. King of Kotha is no doubt a one-man show of Dulquer all the way as he showcases anger, pain, helplessness, and true love with ease and tries to breathe life into a predictable fare. Shabeer, too, impresses as a baddie.
The film begins with a police officer (Prasanna) arriving in Kotha, a place in Cochin, in the 1990s and facing the wrath of a drug peddler (Shabeer ) and his team. He gets to know from his junior (Suresh) that Shabeer dreads the name of Raju (Dulquer Salmaan), who has left the town for the sake of his sister. Prasanna wants him back in town from Lucknow, and he arrives in time to save his sister, who is now over her obsessed lover and kills him instantly. He later begins to target his rival gang members. On the other hand, he tries to reunite with his estranged father in a bid to win back his love. Will he be able to defeat his friend-turned-foe (Shabeer) and free the town from the drugs and his atrocities? Find out in theatres.
King of Kotha Analysis
It looks like Dulquer is the latest actor to be hit by the pan-India success bug. Hence, the actor plays a fearless and ruthless assassin to reach out to viewers across south and North India, but it seems he failed to get hold of the right script to realize his big dream. Aishwarya Lekshmi tries to salvage an ill-defined role. She accepts him as a lover and later ditches him, but the reason looks contrived. While other actors like Prasanna, Suresh, and others fit the bill. The famed lover boy Dulquer disappoints in an angry young man role this time due to a weak script.
