Kingdom (2025 film) Review – Vijay Deverakonda
What Is Kingdom About
Soori, played by Vijay Deverakonda, is a police constable with a sharp mind and a restless heart. When a RAW officer identifies his potential, Soori is recruited for a covert mission to an island near Sri Lanka called Divi. The island is home to a Telugu-speaking community originally from Srikakulam that fled their land during the East India Company era. Decades later they still live in exile, waiting for a prophecied king to return and lead them home. At the centre of all this is Siva, played by Satyadev, who has risen to become the leader of a dangerous smuggling cartel on the island. What Soori does not know when he takes the mission is that Siva is his missing brother. What unfolds from there is a story about loyalty, identity, blood, and the cost of doing the right thing when the wrong thing is standing in front of you wearing the face of someone you love.
Story and Screenplay
The premise of Kingdom is genuinely one of the most interesting ideas Telugu cinema has attempted in recent years. A spy thriller layered with tribal mythology, a displaced community waiting for salvation, and a brotherhood torn apart by circumstance and ideology. On paper this is the kind of story that could have been a landmark Telugu film. The problem is that the paper version and the screen version feel like two entirely different projects.
The first half is the film’s most damaging stretch. Despite a striking prologue set in the British era that establishes the mythology of the Divi people, the film takes far too long to build momentum. Scene after scene passes without a single genuine emotional moment landing. The undercover setup, the introduction of the cartel, the early sequences on the island, all of it looks expensive and polished but feels emotionally hollow. You are watching characters move through a story rather than living inside it with them. The writing never slows down enough to make you care before it moves on to the next plot beat.
The second half is a genuine improvement. The sequences involving Satyadev’s character carry real weight and the film finally finds the emotional register it was searching for throughout the first half. The climax is well executed and visually impressive. But by the time the film gets there, it has already spent so much goodwill that the recovery feels incomplete. A runtime of two hours and forty three minutes is a heavy ask for a film that earns its emotional moments so late.
There is also a significant controversy worth mentioning. The film’s depiction of Sri Lankan Tamils drew serious backlash from the Tamil-speaking community, who condemned it as insensitive to a historically persecuted people. The filmmakers stated it was fictional but the damage to sentiment in Tamil Nadu was real and affected the film’s reception outside Telugu-speaking audiences.
Performances
Vijay Deverakonda is the film’s strongest argument for itself. His performance as Soori is restrained, grounded, and completely sincere. He never overplays the emotion or reaches for the gallery in a role that easily could have been turned into star vehicle chest-thumping. This is Vijay at his most disciplined and it is genuinely good work. Whatever the film’s failures are, they do not belong to him.
Satyadev is equally impressive. The scenes he shares with Vijay in the second half are the best writing and the best acting in the entire film. Their chemistry works and their confrontations carry real stakes. Venkitesh VP plays the antagonist Murugan and while his screen presence is adequate, the character is written so thinly that no actor could have made him truly threatening. Bhagyashri Borse as the female lead is largely decorative, appearing briefly and contributing little to the central story.
Watch latest Telugu movie reviews
Music and Technical Aspects
Anirudh Ravichander’s background score is one of the film’s most consistent pleasures. It is atmospheric and carefully calibrated to the tone of each sequence, elevating the action scenes without drowning out the quieter dramatic moments. His work here is restrained by his standards and it suits the material well. The cinematography by Girish Gangadharan and Jomon T John is stunning throughout. The Sri Lanka landscapes are captured with real beauty and the production design of the Divi island community is richly detailed and convincing. Naveen Nooli’s editing is competent but the film’s pacing problems suggest tighter cuts were needed in the first half.
Direction
Gowtam Tinnanuri made Jersey, one of the finest Telugu films of the last decade, and his ambition here is unmistakably real. Kingdom is not a lazy or cynical film. Gowtam clearly wants to tell something meaningful about identity, belonging, and sacrifice. The problem is that his instinct for emotional storytelling, the thing that made Jersey work so beautifully, gets buried under the weight of world-building and franchise setup. Too much of Kingdom feels like it is laying foundations for Part 2 rather than earning its own emotional conclusion. A film cannot ask audiences to wait for the next chapter to feel satisfied with this one.
Final Verdict
Kingdom is a film of real ambition and genuine frustration in equal measure. Vijay Deverakonda delivers his most committed performance in years and Anirudh and the technical team give the film a scale it absolutely deserves. But a weak first half, underdeveloped supporting characters, an underwritten villain, and a screenplay that prioritises universe building over emotional depth prevent Kingdom from becoming what it clearly wanted to be. Watch it on Netflix for Vijay’s performance and Anirudh’s score. Just do not go in expecting Jersey.
Worth Watching: Yes on OTT, conditionally Best For: Vijay Deverakonda fans, spy thriller lovers, Netflix subscribers Verdict in One Line: Big kingdom, small heart.
