Release date:
|
March 3, 2017
|
Director:
|
Deven Bhojani
|
Cast:
Language:
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Vidyut Jammwal,
Adah Sharma, Esha Gupta, Freddy Daruwala, Adil Hussain, Satish Kaushik,
Shefali Shah, Suhail Nayyar, Thakur Anoop Singh
Hindi
|
It might be natural to assume
that the tale of a government-appointed, trigger-happy action junkie on the
trail of a murderous, black-money-laundering villain would be a fun ride,
especially with His Royal Hotness, His Muscular Majesty Vidyut Jammwal in the
driver’s seat.
Jammwal (yes, now with a double
“M”) is as good-looking as a man can be. If you watched him on debut playing
John Abraham’s bete noir in Force (2011), you probably know that already. As Captain Karanvir Singh Dogra in Commando 2: The Black Money Trail, the
character he earlier played in the 2013 film Commando: A One Man Army, he does everything to please a lustful
viewer. He executes sleek stunts, repeatedly jumping, spinning, flipping,
whirling and twirling his beautiful body through the air. Above all, he wears a
ganji in large parts of the film to
serve us generous views of his bulky bare arms and shoulders. What more could a
hormone-laden viewer ask for?
Finesse in storytelling, perhaps?
Hmm, problem alert!
So it goes that India’s Central
Government, anxious to show results after the demonetisation exercise,
desperately wants to retrieve the crores of black money stashed away in foreign
bank accounts and deposit it as largesse in the accounts of the general
population at home. The crater-like pothole in its path is the Union Home
Minister (Shefali Shah) whose son too has a cache of cash lying abroad.
Pretending to work towards achieving the government’s goals, she assembles a
crack team of mercenary officials who are at her beck and call. They must
travel to Malaysia and arrest Vicky Chadha who is in the business of keeping
safe the black money of a large number of corrupt Indians.
Knowing the Minister’s ill
intentions, Karan – a trained army commando – sneaks his way into the group. The
film is a battle of wits and fists between the honest, patriotic officer who
doesn’t mind taking the law into his own hands (when it is for the country, how
dare we complain!) and those who would betray the motherland for their personal
gain.
Commando
2’s
narrative delivers some unexpected twists and turns, but the colours that fill
in the outline of the story are weak, amateurishly handled and in the end,
amusing in a clumsy effort to play to the gallery. In a film of this sort,
aimed at racing pulses rather than thinking minds, it is perhaps pointless to
ask why the Home Minister alone is the moving force behind the government’s
efforts at retrieving black money from abroad, with the Finance Minister
nowhere in sight. But even as the racy action keeps us hooked, it is hard to
get past Commando 2’s cliches and
loopholes.
Karan & Co zip around
Malaysia with such confidence and ease, it would seem that country is in
India’s pocket and barely has a police force of its own. Adah Sharma plays
Karan's teammate Bhavna Reddy, an irritating encounter specialist who harks
back to the old Hindi film stereotype of a south Indian. Bhavna is a double
whammy of sorts since she serves as a ditsy, frivolous female sidekick to
Jammwal’s grim-as-hell Karan, a sort of female Chris Tucker to every serious
white cop in Hollywood history. Besides, the romance between them feels
terribly contrived and silly because of the complete lack of chemistry between
the two.
Then there is their colleague
Zafar, the most awkwardly written, stereotypical ‘good Muslim’ seen in recent
years in Hindi cinema, the kind that – in my humble opinion – could only emerge
from the pens of writers over-compensating for their deep-rooted suspicion of
the community, a suspicion they may possibly not even be conscious of.
The film’s impressive action
scenes and pretty hero cannot make up for its limited substance, which matters
particularly because the action is not unrelenting. While Karan is bashing up
baddies, it is hard to look away from the screen. When he is not, it becomes
easy.
Sadly, there is more to Jammwal
than that face, body and his fighting skills. Someone give this man a more
substantial film, please.
Rating
(out of five stars): *
CBFC Rating (India):
|
UA
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Running time:
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124 minutes
|
This
review has also been published on Firstpost:
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