This revenge story is a dated package and a classic case of over dependence on the euphoria around the original and the star cast.
Cast – Sanjay Dutt, Alia Bhatt, Aditya Roy Kapoor, Jisshu Sen Gupta, Makarand Deshpande
Director – Mahesh Bhatt
Plot
Ravi (Dutt) is grieving the loss of his wife ,the love of his life, Pooja( Pooja Bhatt in a frame and voice over).He is depressed and suicidal when Aarya( Alia) comes barging into his life and travel agency wanting to travel to Kailas.Daughter of a business tycoon Desai (SenGupta), who is under the spell and influence of a Godman( Deshpande) ,she is running away for her life and sanity. She wants to avenge the death of her mom who she thinks was killed by her aunt ,now step-mom (Priyanka Bose), at the Godman’s behest. For this mission and journey ,she is accompanied by her love Vishal (Aditya).Enroute her destination and destiny ,she has to face a lot in terms of betrayals, shocking revelations and the loss of loved ones. Propelled by a bond he feels with Aarya and finding a motive for his purposeless life, Ravi vows to see her through this.
Analysis
The premise did seem interesting and held promise.They had a capable star cast who actually have gave their best shot.But thats that.
The list of problems is much longer.The treatment of the story is dated and inspid, it just dragged without being gripping; the screenplay is absolutely shoddy, some scenes being tasteless and below average; the dialogues are a disaster, ranging from cliched to cringeworthy ; most characters apart from four central leads seemed like caricatures and some behaved bizarre; the villain seemed more funny than sinister. Except for Dutt ,none of the characters could build any connect.
The film suffers from some really really bad writing (two times “really” not being a writing error)! It suffers from lazy direction and bad production quality. Bhatts are known to be miserly about their budgets but they could have made an exception for their most ambitious home production.
Not that we haven’t seen any mediocre films from Mahesh Bhatt ever and we have also heard various stories about some of his films being ghost directed by his assistants. But when he announced this film, to make a comeback to direction after 20 yrs, directing his talented daughter for the first time, I thought he would give it his best shot! Unfortunately, he seems to be stuck in a time warp and Sadak 2 trashes forever any further expectations from him that we may have.
Performances
Sanjay Dutt is the only one that shines in this disaster. He gets a lion’s share of focus and gives a befitting performance that made us feel his grief every time he was the on the screen.
Alia is good but the writing fails her. Her character and looks seem repetitive and “ oh so seen before”. We know what a good director and great script can bring out of her.
Aditya looks great but is purely wasted in that little role.
Jisshu Sen Gupta is a capable actor but towards the fag end of the movie , his character makes him go beyond and over the top.
Recommendation
The film is a complete disaster specially because of the rightful expectations from the cast and crew. The IMDB rating of 1 could be owed to planned agenda but the reviews trashing it up are absolutely genuine. Sanjay Dutt and Alia fans might still want to tread this treacherous path. After all this format allows us the advantage of fast forward to last through boring stuff and still be able to tick off the film.
Score 4 on 10