Raid 2:  Ritesh  Deshmukh ,Amit Sial Steal The Show In An Honourable Sequel

Raid 2:  Ritesh  Deshmukh ,Amit Sial Steal The  Show In An  Honourable Sequel

Rating: ***

 The  best performance in this  honourable,though  not outstanding, sequel  comes from that neglected grossly underrated  actor Amit Sial who plays a crooked Mr  Fix-it in the income  tax department: just what need in our askew bureaucratic  system.

 Rajkumar Gupta’s  Raid 2 is  not  quite  the  rousing  anti-corruption chant that we expect it to be  after the  2018 revenue buster which had Sourabh Shukla as  the hefty horder.Shukla keeps popping  up in the sequel as well, for reasons that are not too apparent,  except to perhaps taunt the  hero Amay Patnaik(Devgan) each time he seems to  slip up in the  line of  a duty, or otherwise  to heckle his fellow-offender ,a  political heavyweight  named Dada Manohar Bhai,played heftily by Riteish Deshmukh.

 His character’s  sins  are so heavily buried  under the  rubble of  mob idolatory it almost seems  like  a set-up. The  script extracts Dada  Manohar Bhai’s vileness with ruthlessness like  cavity-ridden teeth .

Regrettably the  anti-corruption  zeal is  on this  occasion  unsupported  by a strong  motivation. The  characters seem to be   floating around  in  search of  a cause bigger than the one that seems apparent: to merely tap into a potentially  successful  franchise with a racy sequel.

 But it  is a brisk risk. The writing, credited to as many as  four writers, is  all over the  place, swinging from one  low-hanging  branch to  another in the  hope of  finding its bearing at the  end. But I don’t think the  plot really adds up. There are too many loose ends thrown around  for us  to  chew  into .

 To cite  an example, at the  start the intrepid IRS  hero  asks for a  huge  bribe from an  economic offender as a ploy to  nab the culprit.  But  which bureaucrat in his right mind would risk his job and reputation?

     Amay  Patnaik’s colleagues  who seemed like  a gutsy real bunch of dedicated  officers in the earlier film, are here reduced to borderline caricatures. The  exception of course is Lallan Sudhir  whom Amit Sial plays as  much the   characters plays the  villain. It is a  role with a scandalous   road map that  Sial  negotiates with a notable swag.

  As  for Ajay Devgan  lately he has  been seen doing nothing  to his characters  . The  suave equipoise is now wearing thin.  Something else,please,

 Raid 2 is  not  really the sequel we would have  liked  to see. But it is  not  all a  loss either. It has a rugged  energy to its  storytelling.  But very little characterization to justify the  presence of a  sequel. The women  are  woefully underwritten  in the  plot. Supriya  Pathak as the  villain’s mother has her sporadic  outbursts  but not enough.As for Vaani Kapoor she has little  to do except to show the camera how well she carries  off the saree. Lame attempts to include her in the climax  only  accentuate what we already know  about films on truelife heroes:  behind every success man there  is  a woman, and she  stays  behind.