Kennedy Club Review - An Atrociously Lethargic Sports Film

Suhansid Srikanth

If there is one genre that is brutally ripped apart in Tamil films.. it is definitely SPORTS. The template of a failed coach coaching a bunch of nobodies ending up in a nail biting final match is an age old story. Still.. Certain films like Irudhi Suttru or a Godha or Dangal embraced the genre and managed to push the limits by bringing a flavour and essence to the core and crux of the game. Suseendran's Kennedy Club.. on the other hand, is an atrociously lethargic sports film that stands out as nothing but a sheer bad example of lazy writing and direction. 

In a rural village down south, Sasikumar coaches the local Kabbadi team on behalf of his mentor Bharathiraja. The teammates are all from poor backgrounds. They are constantly denied opportunities because the official in the selection committee is corrupted. The film doesn't have anything else beyond these three plot points. And almost two hour long sequences are looped on and on around these situations. And to top it off.. the players are often motivated by the oppression every women deals with and how they have to succeed to prove a point.

While SasiKumar is super rigid to emote and play the monotonously written role in the most monotonic way possible.. Bharathi Raja over does everything. The superlatively overacting or overreacting character and performance gets increasingly tedious right from the beginning. There are 7-8 players, all debutants.. but we could never praise the performances as none of them have been given with even a barely written or developed character. 

Out of the 120 minutes.. the film has its legit 40-50 minutes on Kabbadi matches and tournaments. They come off as nothing but big bore because we don't see the traits of the game or the tricks. We don't see the teammate's talents. We don't see how every individual owns the game. Instead we are constantly cut to montages of players attacking or being pulled down with sequential inserts of empty audience cheering! With every passing minute.. the clichés keep doubling. Motiveless scenes lead to more motiveless dialogues. Random emotional outbursts and what nots!

However.. surpassing all the mediocrity this film is.. the true tragedy is the music by Imman. The entire film is scored with just one loud, noisy track. It keeps coming over and over no matter whether to underline victory, motivation, winning or fighting back. You literally feel it thumping rods in the middle of your forehead, even hours after coming out of the film.

Bottomline:

Suseendran's Kennedy Club starring Sasikumar and BharathiRaja is a pointless, tiresome sports film that has zero efforts in its writing. 

Rating : 1.5/5