‘L2: Empuraan’ review: Making movie violence count

A movie becomes more violent the further it gets from movie violence. Movie violence insulates. It excites, titillates, comforts. It reassures audiences that what they’re seeing isn’t real and need not be taken too seriously. A realistic punch in the face registers more strongly than a hero sending half a dozen bodies flying through the air. Movie violence has no wish to distress or dismay, or to remind you of violence in the real world.

The opening credits of Prithviraj Sukumaran’s L2: Empuraan, a sequel to his Lucifer (2019), show the burning of a train compartment with Hindu passengers in 2002, as had happened in Godhra, Gujarat that year. The sequence that follows shows the bloody reprisal, as Hindu mobs go on the rampage. It has the hallmarks of Indian movie violence—a truck barreling through a gate, sword-wielding goons leaping through the air, speed ramping, various things on fire—but the idea is to disturb and reckon with history. A group of Muslims offered shelter by a Hindu landowner are ambushed, sexually assaulted, burnt alive and otherwise brutally murdered. The reference to the Naroda Patiya massacre, in which 97 Muslims were killed in a day, is made clear by naming the chief perpetrator Baba Bajrangi (one of the actual accused was Bajrang Dal leader Babu Bajrangi).

This is a charged, upsetting sequence, and a most unexpected one in a mainstream action film. Frank revisitations of the Gujarat riots have been few and far between in an increasingly right-leaning Indian cinema. Even Empuraan backs off somewhat after this—though it makes one vital connection. In the present day of the film, Bajrangi (Abhimanyu Singh) has become a political kingmaker (with a direct line to an unnamed Home Minister). His chief accomplice in the massacre, Munna (Sukant Goel), is now a politician. The rioters of yesterday are the leaders of the present.

Empuraan picks up six years after the events of Lucifer. Stephen Nedumpally (Mohanlal), reluctant saviour of the Indian Union Front party, in reality Khureshi-Ab’raam, head of an international crime cartel, is still in hiding. Jathin Ramdas (Tovino Thomas), IUF’s young head and Kerala’s chief minister, is looking to step out from his late father’s shadow. He takes an extreme route, forming his own party with the support of Bajrangi, whose organisation, the RSS-like ‘Akhanda Shakti Morcha’, is trying to make inroads in Kerala. Journalist Govardhan (Indrajith Sukumaran) is still trawling the dark web, trying to make sense of the enigma that’s Stephen. Oh, and Jerome Flynn—Ser Bronn of the Blackwater—is head of the MI6, who are hunting for Ab’raam along with the Kabuga cartel.

Unlike the bloated, borderline incoherent Pushpa 2, Empuraan proceeds in a more ordered fashion, switching between the various Kerala storylines and Ab’raam’s global shenanigans. Mohanlal is an unstable presence at the centre of the film; he keeps disappearing and reappearing, and every time Prithviraj feels obligated to give him an elaborate entry scene. Nyla Usha’s newscaster returns but essentially does nothing; Indrajith’s jumpy reporter routine is a rehash of the first film. Jathin isn’t too interesting either, his rightward shift seemingly an act of political opportunism rather than any sort of belief system. There’s a threat to a dam that just lays there like Chekhov’s gun.

In writer Murali Gopy’s nightmare scenario for Kerala, the left is weak, the centre can’t hold, and the Sangh gains power through outside support. If Jathin in the first film had shades of Rahul Gandhi, the IUF-INC link is established this time through the arc of Priyadarshini (Manju Warrier), an amalgam of Gandhi family women, who takes on party responsibilities after avoiding them all her life and proves more adept than everyone expects. The Akhanda Shakti Morcha members are thuggish, connected to Delhi, well-organised, mostly Hindi-speaking. Even though they’re thwarted, it’s sobering to see the film’s vision of Kerala as ripe for the picking.

Prithviraj is hardly a stylist, but you can see he’s always looking for an exciting shot. Sujith Vaassudev’s camera is perpetually on the move, and often looking at the subject through something (fire, mist, a broken window) or at an unusual angle. It isn't high art but simple stratagems like these are welcome when the runtime is three hours. The stop-start action is much less inventive—apart from the nightmarish pogrom at the start, there's no standout set piece, let alone the glories of Mohanlal’s Malaikottai Vaaliban from last year.

As Zayed, an assassin in Ab’raam’s cartel, Prithviraj shows up in a few action scenes, as he did in the first film. We see him as a teenager at the start, the only survivor of the massacre. Empuraan ultimately allows him some violent retribution. But the film has forced us to remember, and the scene feels hollow if you think of Babu Bajrangi on bail or Maya Kodnani free. Still, for about 20 minutes, this is a brave film, and a necessary one.

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