INDIAN 2 – MOVIE REVIEW

Indian 2  vigilante action film directed by S. Shankar, who co-wrote the script with B. Jeyamohan, Kabilan Vairamuthu and Lakshmi Saravana Kumar. The film is jointly produced by Lyca Productions and Red Giant Movies. It is the second instalment in the Indian trilogy and sequel to Indian (1996).

Sequels are not an easy exercise, especially when one attempts something that had been hugely successful a long time ago. When Shankar embarked on this sequel after a good almost 3 decades, there were many fence sitters as many as faithful optimists. Vigilantism,activism, online activism have all been pummeled to death in the more than a hundred movies in the last decade and for Shankar who has been one of the torchbearers of such films to toe the same line after 30 years would have taken some confidence. This film changed hands and ran into many obstacles before it finally saw light.

The film jumps on to the expressway straight away without meandering much. With the audience well aware of the plot, the makers do not waste much time in having to explain anything. That is where the problem lies, with the initial spark failing to spiral into a rage, the film then becomes a series of episodes that feels cold and repetitive. Though there is the Shankar touch at a few places, the screenplay has nothing new to offer and feels like waking up the audience to countless scenes and incidents that have been flogged to death, as recently as yesterday. With the audience being exposed to “live coverage” of corruption and criminal activities, these ancient plots do not impress one bit.  The hero’s hunts are pathetically conceived and the ridiculousness of the execution would baffle a juvenile movie watcher. If the writers thought they would bring in some amusement in the process, they were wrong as it felt more cringe. Siddharth has a parallel small story that runs along and the melodrama in the end ruins whatever little that could be salvaged.  The film could have been easily trimmed by 45 minutes, or should they have just dumped it? A never ending climax to boot, it was a relief to see the end credit, though a fortunate few who remained in the theatres caught a glimpse of INDIAN 3.  Only the die hard optimists would return to that..

Kamal hassan appears on stage in different attire, mouthing some lengthy dialogues only to return again and again in a sham of a performance.  What can one say about the prosthetics and makeup that look so bad and artificial, while the makeup in the first part 30 years ago looked much more organic. Siddharth always acts like he is in prosthetics, while attempting to be subtle he is loud. Rakul Preeth. Priya Bhavani Shankar all makes up the numbers with nothing effective to deliver. Samudrakanni is OK while Bobby Simha must have played the dumbest police officer in his career.

Cinematography by Ravi Varman is good. Musical score by Anirudh is average. Dialogues are ordinary. Editing by Sreekar Prasad is underpar. Direction by Shankar is uninteresting.

INDIAN 2 is an indignant sequel and is Shankar’s weakest film !!

INDIAN 2- INTOLERABLE (ERICHAL) !!

B.U.Shreesha