: A lesson for all filmmakers who want to create pulpy thrillers: make your movies or shows relentlessly engaging, and embrace the pulpiness so wholeheartedly that the viewer does not end up dissecting the 'who, how, when' of the narrative. With that said, let me share my thoughts on , the sequel to the 2021 Netflix hit , starring Taapsee Pannu and Vikrant Massey. With Harshvardhan Rane's character dying at the end of the first movie, Sunny Kaushal steps in to replace him in this lusty and toxic love triangle.
Even the director has changed, with Jayprad Desai (of fame) taking over from Vinil Mathew. Kanika Dhillon continues to provide her penmanship for the sequel. .
Months after the events of , Rishabh (Massey) and Rani (Pannu) have escaped from Kasauli to Agra. Since Rishabh is supposedly dead, he assumes a new identity and doesn't live with Rani, who works as a beautician, even though they continue to meet clandestinely. Rishabh is trying to arrange an escape to Thailand so they can live without fear of the police.
However, to thwart their plans, the police investigating Neel's death arrive in their town, led by Mrityunjay Paswan (Jimmy Shergill), aka 'Montu Chacha', who also happens to be the uncle of the deceased victim. In an attempt to allay their suspicions, Rani comes up with an idea: to marry her new admirer, Abhimanyu (Sunny Kaushal), an orphaned compounder. Little does she know that this will further complicate her problems.
does one thing right: it briefly tricked me into thinking it would serve as a superior sequel to a rather average romantic thriller. That moment occurred when Rani marries Abhimanyu and begins to develop feelings for him. I was curious to see how the severely obsessed Rishabh would react and how that would complicate the love triangle.
Alas, 'Dinesh Pandit' plays the spoilsport here. For those who may have forgotten, Dinesh Pandit is the unseen fictional author of several pulpy books that Rani is a fan of. The books come into play here, as shifts into thriller heist mode, delivering impractical twists left, right, and centre.
I am all for pulpy thrillers or even believe in them as logicalities. Or take Sriram Raghavan's movies closer to home. That's the trick for pulpy filmmaking.
The problem with is that it takes itself so seriously that even you start taking whatever it is throwing at you seriously. So, when a man is shown struggling to swim with one hand after escaping in the previous movie by doing exactly that, you start to question things. It compounds the issue when you realise that his entire plan revolves around swimming in a crocodile-infested river, and you wonder why he never considered this problem.
It's also noteworthy that he easily overcomes this issue, and the entire sequence was crafted for a lazy twist. 'Lazy twists' are exactly what you will find in abundance in . The film tries to set up a lot of things but goes about it in a half-baked manner.
Take Mrityunjay, or 'Montu Chacha', for example. He is established as a shrewd cop who can be relentless in his pursuit. He even puts Rani under surveillance, yet the surveillance magically disappears whenever she meets her former husband, even in broad daylight.
Even Poonam (Bhumika Dube), Rishabh's physically handicapped harasser, manages to track him to his hideouts, but not Montu Chacha's officers. So, how can we take this movie seriously when it doesn’t take itself seriously? Still, I won't deny the intrigue of this lovecapade, even if, like the first film, I have nothing to root for in a toxic couple, no matter how hard tries to make you sympathise with their love. I was intrigued by the 'what's going on' in the screenplay, but that intrigue is nullified when I’m already confident of 'where it's all going'.
When you are sure of who is going to triumph in the end, and the film doesn't even try hard to make you suspect its hidden intentions, it's game over for the movie. So don't blame me, , for stifling a yawn when you show a character taking a seemingly fatal plunge from a dangerous height and expect me to mourn over them. This was where I was intrigued about how the film would handle the triangle.
However, once layers are peeled off Abhimanyu, you can see the predictable ride is planning to take you on, and the zest gets lost. Furthermore, it annoys me when any film includes deceptive scenes that deliberately trick the viewer into believing something that isn't true. A crucial scene on a railway bridge, when the police try to capture Rishabh, is exactly that, and that is a sign of unconfident storytelling.
The performances are good but not extraordinary. Taapsee and Vikrant extend what they committed to in the previous movie. Sunny Kaushal surely stands out as the innocuous third wheel who has his own secrets, except that I have seen him in a similar role before in another Netflix film.
Jimmy Shergill, while fine, is caught in a trope that prevents his character from making a proper impact. The brilliant Aditya Shrivastava gets sidelined when Shergill takes charge. struggles under the weight of its ambitions.
It tries to deliver a complex, twist-laden narrative but ends up tying itself in knots. While the film occasionally flirts with engaging ideas, it ultimately falls back on predictable and lazy storytelling, relying on contrived twists rather than genuine suspense. is streaming on Netflix.
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