Gadar 2 Review: OUCH!

Even Sunny Deol can't salvage this uninspired and dated drivel, sighs Mayur Sanap.

There is no film genre that can make me happy the way a well-made mass entertainer can.

Some recent Bollywood outings yielded great success by cracking down the formula with new-age sensibilities, making me excited as well as curious about Gadar 2, which takes forward 'the legend of Tara Singh' that Director Anil Sharma first introduced to us two decades ago with Sunny Deol as the angry Jat hero.

In this high-scale sequel, the story is ramped up with more drama and emotion but without the necessary update in its treatment of storytelling.

As a result, the film is relegated to this uninspired and dated drivel that even an in-form Deol can't salvage it.

The film opens with a quick recap of how the cross-border romance between Tara Singh (Deol) and Sakina (Ameesha Patel) created a stir in both India and Pakistan during Partition.

The story moves ahead by 17 years, as we see the couple living a harmonious life with their grown-up son Jeete (Utkarsh Sharma).

Meanwhile, in Pakistan, the 'Crush India' sentiment is picking up as they prepare to wage war against India.

Pakistan general Hamid Iqbal (a terribly over-the-top Manish Wadhwa) harbours vendetta against Tara, due to unhealed wounds of the past.

When Tara is assumed to be captured by Pakistani troops, Jeete lands in Pakistan with a false identity to save his father. A twist occurs, and Jeete is stuck on foreign soil. It is now up to Tara to use his might and bring his son back.

Much like its predecessor, the film is designed as a relentless action drama with high personal stakes.

But here, almost the entire first half is spent to set up the drama, and the real action is reserved for the latter half.

Returning writer Shaktimaan Talwar's script is a diluted version of what worked in the first film, but as viewers, we are at arm's length from the film because the story is far from emotionally engaging.

Director Anil Sharma's showmanship feels hollow as he banks on the nostalgia of the original film instead of infusing the narrative with something fresh. His attempt to frequent call-backs leads to high-decibel shouting, dialoguebaazi, patriotic fanaticism and gory action that accommodate most of its excessive length.

The film achieves unintentional hilarity when the shrillness reaches a certain point in its climax when the logic is thrown completely out of the window.

Sunny Deol steers this heavy-handed drama with his magnetic performance as Tara Singh. He is charming enough to sing and dance for his ladylove and violent enough to maul multiple people in one go.

His actions are dripping with guts and gore. Thankfully, the hand-pump remains rooted to the ground but an electric pole is put through his wrath.

Ameesha looks lost because the script does not know what to do with her character, and she is left teary-eyed with absolutely no emotional heft to her Sakina.

This is essentially a re-launching for Anil Sharma's son Utkarsh, whose debut film Genius went largely unnoticed in 2018.

He is given an entire gamut of commercial acting to showcase -- from drama, dance, romance, comedy and action. But it is a lot for him to manage in one film, and his stifled performance is a direct result of that.

Simrat Kaur as Pakistani girl Muskaan, who falls hopeless in love with Utkarsh's Jeete, has a delightful screen presence but she can't rise above the threadbare character she is restricted to. In one flippant moment in the film, she asks Utkarsh with a tinge of sarcasm, 'Actor, aur aap?' I almost chuckled.

At the end, Gadar 2 feels like it is still reveling in its blockbuster legacy rather than creating its own mark.

However, the fact that the film isn't offensively bad is actually its redeemable quality.

For the most part, though, it is just mediocre and forgettable.