Anand Sankeshwar’s tribute to his enterprising acclaimed father Vijay is sincere but it’s an exhausting near-three hour drama.
Rating: 2 / 5
By Mayur Lookhar
Barely an hour after watching the film, this reviewer reached home, had dinner and then checked Twitter. It was past 11 pm. The top trend was #Vijayanandon9December. It was accompanied by the text ‘promoted by VRL group’. Thank God, this is no vanity marketing like the one we saw in The Legend [2022]. But it doesn’t turn the fact that Vijayanand is produced by the very company that Vijay Sankeshwar founded.
Initially, many Hindi audiences, including this reviewer, confused the title with a biopic on the legendary Bollywood filmmaker. The Kannada film is a biographical film on Vijay Sankeshwar, who founded VRL, the largest logistics firm in India, and also owns the largest Karnataka daily Vijaya Vani. Earlier, he ran the Vijaya Karnataka daily which was then acquired by the Bennett, Coleman and Co. Ltd [The Times of India].
Not quite a rag to riches saga, this is more an enterprising story of a man who dared to dream big, set his own path, faced many hurdles and eventually triumphed in all business endeavors. The journey began when he opted to leave the family printing press business in Gadag to set up an independent transport entity. Sankeshwar was the brain and also the hand [driver] here. Whether it is transport or later setting up a state-wide regional publication, Sankeshwar’s biggest challenge is the monopolistic players. The challenge gets physical in the rooted transport business. It’s more corporate while taking on local competitor R. Rao [Prakash Belawadi] and later selling out to the elephant of the publishing business. His son Anand [Bharat Bopanna] played a more hands on role in the press business. The story is narrated by the son. The Hindi writing and the dubbing is poor.
Make no bones about it, director Rishika Sharma has a fine story. What’s lacking though is a taut screenplay, and an able cast. The film projects Vijay [Nihal] as this righteous businessman who values integrity above anything else. That is a far cry from the usual ‘profit at all cost’ ideology. The integrity, principle is all fine, but there is not adequate business acumen on display here. Vijay thinks of an idea, seeks funds, encounters a hurdle, and soon finds success. The writing lacks depth, with the screenplay dragging on for large parts of its 159 minutes. It gets exhaustive due to the woody show by its lead. Nihal could easily give John Abraham a run for his money. Mental toughness doesn’t require one to show too many emotions, but when your godown is burning in front of your eyes, how can you not be moved?
Bopanna, too, puts up a pale show. The generation/ cultural gap between Vijay and his father B.G Sankeshwar [Anant Nag] is fine, but the Vijay and Anand relationship, too, plays out like a father-son duo from a mythology. The women have limited scope in this screenplay. His wife Lalitha [Siri Prahlad] and mother Chandramma [Vinaya Prasad] have their odd voice, but women here are largely reduced to a prop. The sibling relationship is barely explored.
Kannada audience are the best judge of the tone, but Vijayanand is another film that is lost in translation. Save for Prakash Belawadi and the veteran Anant Nag, the others put up a ham show. Though Sankeshwar’s not one to carry animosity, the absence of a strong antagonist hurts the film. Early on, the fellow truckers allow Sharma to add certain massy trope, but it is too much melodrama. The tension really builds up in the printing press competition, but the corresponding visuals, tone is average.
The film finely captures the Karnataka belt of the 50s, 60s finely. The Hindi can never do justice, but we presume that couple of tracks would be good in the original language. We’ve not seen it, but Vijayanand definitely is no poor marketing, vanity affair like The Legend [2022]. However, it is neither a fine piece of cinema. Vijay Sankeshwar’s story is inspiring, but it needed a better narrative and abled hands both in front and behind the camera.
