If you too were disappointed with the trailer of Sadak 2. Maybe there’s some solace to be found in the fact, that,that trailer really was the best this film could have done.
Hey guys, this is Film Companion, you're watching Not A Movie Review and right now I’m not going to be reviewing, Sadak 2. Sanjay Dutt as Ravi Kishore from Sadak 1,has had a nice life with his sweetheart Pooja, but, after she tragically dies in a car crash,he has lost his will to live. He makes multiple attempts to kill himself,but an interruption in the form of Alia Bhatt as Aarya, keeps, well interrupting, and before he knows it,his life is intertwined with hers, and he becomes her “rakshak”/driver,towards her final destination, Kailash. Why is she going to Kailash?
Well. This 20 year old is passionate about 2 thingsand has no other life it seems. One, she has vowed to take downgod-man Gyan Prakash. And two, she is passionate about Shiv bhagwaan, toh while her entire family is hatching all kinds of plans,to kill her and inherit the family fortune, she is desperate to drive to Kailash for her 21st birthday, and with Shiv ji’s blessing,she wants to set her plan in action.
A plan which doesn’t seem moreevolved than signing online petitions and getting people to join her anti-cult, cult. If itna sunkar aapko lag raha hai, okay, okay, this i canbuy, you know, a young generation trying to rise beyond, “tum bachey ho, tumhey pata nahi, obey your elders”, and also simultaneously exposingtarah tarah ke andh-vishwaas, sure. I’m into it. Par aside from this central thought,the rest of the storytelling is so terribly unoriginal, dated and flat out bizarre in parts,
I went to bed with a headacheand a certain level of sadness. Kyunki for Mahesh Bhatt to writeand direct after so long and name a man with anamputated arm something, “Hathkataa” and have that man be a hammy Gulshan Grover,is just tragic on a lazy Kumbhakarna level, which happens to be the name ofAditya Roy Kapoor’s pet owl, in the film, who's only in the film for Aditya Roy Kapoorto say the line “yeh mera beta hai”, and also for Sanjay Dutt to say“jaa Kumbhakarna dikha de apna kamaal”. I'm sorry, am I watching Harry Potterand the Deathly Bore? I could have gone with Harry Potterand the half-assed script. Or Fantastic Beasts and where to fight them. But I'm sticking with my original choice.
What kamaal? It is an owl in a normal muggle world. Owls don’t operate on command, they do no kamaal. Especially not when in a face off with a one-armed villain. Owls don’t give a crap. The dialogue is straight out of Aashiqui universe,and not even the new one. See if Aditya Roy Kapoor's character doesn’t say lineslike “woh subah meri zindagi ki sabse haseen subah thi’, you’ll start to wonder ki kya hua, is he okay? Toh him being given“tum abhi bhi mujhsey pyaar karti ho?”
and….well “woh subah meri zindagi ki sabse haseen subah thi”,checks out. But for Alia Bhatt to be saddled with “Hum logon ne joh logon ke dilon mein aag jalaayi hai,woh nahi bujhegi”, is so far beneath her, that while she is saying these lines,on some level you’re feeling bad for the actor, who just really wanted to besupportive of her father I guess? The dialogue and music,might be the biggest culprits, really. When you’re trying to give your film modern, real touches like online petitions, talking about socialmedia, online trolling, GPS, the denouncing of god-men, but your characters are saying,“Jisne meri zindagi ko zindagi di”, and KK is heard singing dated,rhyming heavy songs about "rooh ka humnawa", you don’t have me convinced about anything, for any duration at all. The person working hardest iscinematographer Jay Patel.
Working with Amit Ray and Subrata Chakraborty’sproduction design, he tries to bring in some mystery into his frames. But, because for some reason Aarya’s loud,psychotic parents live inside Hogwart’s castle and Jishu Sengupta keeps yelling “Nandini”,like he’s just finished watching and is very impressed with Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam,the whole mirage shatters, it just gets that weird. Its astounding to me that a whole bunch of talented and experienced cinema professionalscame together to sink money into this film.
That no one pointed out howunwatchable Makarand Deshpande’s bits are, especially when he’s trying to makean escape dressed like a woman, which could be a nod toSadashiv Amrapurkar’s Maharani, or shade towards a similarBaba Ramdev incident from 2011. And that despite an incoherent trailer, no one prepared us,for exactly how bad this film would be. So, on a scale of 1 to 10, Sadak 2 is……2? I don’t know…. I cant put any more thought into this film.2 brain-cells bachey hain? I don’t know. Subscribe to Film Companion. And be decent people.
