Watch TrailerGadar Movie Review: It’s 2001 and it was my first year in college. Being a film enthusiast, the idea of bunking college and watching a movie with friends was really exciting. When Sunny Deol’s Gadar and Aamir Khan’s Lagaan hit the theatres that year, I simply couldn’t miss either of them. My classmates and I decided to watch the Sunny Deol starrer first. We went to watch the movie at Gaiety, a single-screen cinema in suburban Mumbai. The 900-odd-seater theatre was packed with Sunny Deol fans who would whistle and clap at every dialogue and dance to his songs. We could barely hear any dialogue. We decided to watch it again and the experience was similar. People were tossing coins on the screen as a token of love for the movie. It was only after a few weeks and on my third watch, I could hear and see the film without any noise.
About 22 years later, Gadar 2 hit the screens this week with a lot of expectations and enthusiasm from the loyal fans of the first part and even the new generation. But unfortunately, Gadar 2 is not even a patch on the first part. A shoddy screenplay, bad script, and a whole lot of redundant dialogue make the sequel a perfect recipe for disaster.
Director Anil Sharma maintains this high-pitch fervor from the first frame to the last. The film is set 17 years after the original, in 1971, where Tara Singh (Sunny Deol) is living happily ever after with his wife Sakina (Ameesha Patel) and son Chiranjeet (Utkarsh Sharma). Hamid Iqbal (Manish Wadhwa) is the head of the Pakistani battalion who was in charge of stopping Tara and Sakina. He is hellbent on revenge. He kills Ashraf Ali, Sakina’s father, using his position. He now wants to kill Tara Singh. The war clouds are looming and the Indian army seeks help from local truck drivers to deliver their reinforcement ammunition on a hilly slope. Tara leads the way and even fights with the Pakistani army just like a soldier. But in the process, he gets lost. Has he been captured by the Pakistani army? Or has he lost his life? To find out the answers, his son decides to go to Pakistan and get his father back. He goes undercover and meets Muskaan (Simratt Kaur). But there is a twist in the tale.
The only specks of authenticity to expect in the film are the dates of events and the correct names of the geographical locations. Everything else defies reality and logic, unabashedly so. Just about anything goes in the name of Sunny Deol. The film is a far-fetched, brazen, and unapologetic paean to the stardom of the actor, showcasing him as the ultimate action hero. So there are umpteen shots of Deol strutting in slow motion and the action is designed to showcase him as a one-man army. But his fans will surely be disappointed as the actor barely has any screen presence in the first half.
The background music was so loud that after the movie finished, I could barely hear anything. There is not even a single whistle-worthy moment including the recreation of the hand pump sequence which seems jaded.
The Pakistanis characters are heavily stereotyped. Their battle scenes are also shown with no balance. Despite having the guns, Deol can decimate half the Pakistani army. He is massacring them with bare hands, a wheel, a hammer, and a hand pump.
I wouldn’t fault much on Deol — as he hardly has any material to play with. The actor, who can make any tacky action watchable, practically sleepwalks through the film and still manages to be the best thing in the movie. But then again, what were the options? Ameesha Patel has only three things to do in the entire film. She sprints like a marathon runner in long shots, prays for the return of her husband and son and the third one is to get worried. Utkarsh Sharma can hardly hold the fort. Simratt makes a forgettable debut and the rest of the cast is as bad as the film.
At a 170-minute running time, sitting through Gadar 2 is a battle. Director Anil Sharma has nothing new to say after delivering a blockbuster in Gadar. For the past few years, Hindi films have resorted to the formula of making a sequel if something works well. While sequels can extend the life of beloved characters and stories, they can also risk damaging their legacy if not executed with care. Gadar 2 falls in that category. Do yourself a favour, skip this, and watch the original film in the comfort of your home.
