Sadak 2 Review: Despite Dutt’s Performance It Fails To Impress

Sadak2(Disney-Hotstar)

Starring Sanjay Dutt,  Alia Bhatt, Aditya Roy Kapur

Directed  by Mahesh Bhatt

Rating: **

  Believe  it or not,  Gulshan Grover in a walk-on part which he must have  accepted  for  old times’ sake, plays a villain named Haathkatta. Because, get this,   one of his  hands has been  severed.

 Subtlety  is  certainly not  one  of  the  strong points  of this  belated sequel to a 1991  film that was ripped off from Martin Scorcese’s  Taxi Driver. This  Sadak swerves off the  highway in  no time  at  all.It is shocking  that a  script so shoddy and inane  would be allowed to serve as a  comeback to direction  for  Mahesh Bhatt, and that too to  direct his star-daughter Alia Bhatt.

Both deserve better.So does Sanjay Dutt.So do we.

Sadak2  is the kind of debilitating disappointment that Indian cinema suffers when  the  biggest of talents get together  to deliver a certifiable  dud.  It happened when Kamal Amrohi made  Razia Sultan  or more recently when   Yash Raj films  made Thugs Of Hindustan.

What  makes  a truckload  of talented  people  go on a suicidal  mission destined to be doomed from the  day someone suggested  it?

I can see someone from Mahesh Bhatt’s team  suggesting Sadak 2. “Let’s bring Baba back, Sanju Baba. To battle the  fraud religious Baba.Let’s sign  Makarand  Deshpande  to play  the fraud Godbaba.”

Right. Got that.  What else?  Fatally  the Sadak2 writers forgot to  join the dots in  the screenplay. Most of  the  narrative lurches forward  like  a rudderless ship heaving  to a bland finale that  could give Lord  Of  The  Rings  The Return  Of  The  King competition  for  the worst movie climax of the year.

 But that’s at the end. See  if you can survive  the  onslaught  of  incoherence  that Sadak 2 heaps on from  the opening (Alia Bhatt  burning down a godman’s  poster)  like indigestible food at  a  wedding banquet. You know it’s  probably going to kill  you. But what  the  hell! You cling on to the cornball thrills in the hope they would mend their ways and start behaving themselves.

 But no. Till the end Sadak 2 behaves like  an errant  child that insists on embarrassing the guests  who have come home for dinner. The action scenes are laughably clumsy and  the acting , barring  Sanjay Dutt who has  a naturally  grieving face,  is amateurish , and that includes seasoned Bengali actors  Jisshu Sengupta and  Priyanka Bose. As  Alia’s  neurotic parents  they behave like  a couple on  Bigg Boss hellbent on outdoing each  other’s bad behaviour.

 Makarand Deshpande as  the  imposter  guru is a howl.Was he  closet-funny while pretending to be sinister? In the end  he suddenly dons a saree to remind us of Sadashiv Amrapurkar’s  vicious  transgender villain in Sadak Part 1.

Alia Bhatt  looks bewildered most of the time,  coming alive in her  closing monologue on fraudulent  godmen. Both  Dutt and Alia  are suicidal characters,though probably  not as much as  the  makers  of this film. Sadak 2 is  our worst  nightmare come true. A  film whose very presence endorses  the nepotism debate .