The jokes don’t land. The one-liners fall flat. And worse, nobody from the well-stacked cast looks like they are having fun, observes Mayur Sanap.
The only enduring memory of Ajay Devgn’s Son of Sardaar is the controversial double bill when it released alongside YRF’s Jab Tak Hai Jaan during the Diwali week in 2012.
The events leading up to clash between two biggies were far more dramatic than the combined drama of those films.
Beyond this, the Devgn starrer was a disposable and forgettable affair with the actor playing a turban-clad manchild and just being irritable throughout.
Over a decade later, a sequel comes in form of Son of Sardaar 2 that stays true to its legacy and delivers the same old buffoonery that incites more facepalms and eye-rolls than laughs.
Joining the ‘spiritual sequel’ bandwagon, the characters and set-up are all new in this part two, which makes you wonder why a film that has absolutely no nostalgia value needed a sequel in the first place.
Yet, here we are.
The setting has changed from the mustard fields of the Punjab to the lush landscape of Scotland.
Devgn’s Jassi arrives in England to reconcile with his estranged wife Dimple (Neeru Bajwa).
Jassi learns that Dimple loves somebody else and wants a divorce.
Heartbroken, he bumps into Rabia (Mrunal Thakur), who shelters him at her house after learning about his sob story.
Rabia is a Pakistani who leads a dance troupe with her housemates Mehwish (Kubbra Sait), Saba (Roshni Walia), and Gul (Deepak Dobriyal).
Saba falls in love with the wealthy Goggi (Sahil Mehta), whose patriotic father (Ravi Kishan) wants only a shareef Hindustani khandaan for his son.
A twist in the tale arrives when Rabia and Jassi pose as Saba’s parents to help her get married.
He pretends to be a retired soldier, she pretends to be his Indian wife, and there begins the comedy of errors.
Director Vijay Kumar Arora and his team of writers, Jagdeep Singh Sidhu and Mohit Jain, throw in desperate attempts to generate humour but it results into a comic ramble that runs like a headless chicken.
More random characters are introduced, and as expected, the incoherent plot gets stupider scene after scene.
The jokes don’t land.
The one-liners fall flat.
And worse, nobody from the well-stacked cast looks like they are having fun.
It’s good to see Devgn taking a timeout from his usual tough guy image, but Jassi is a stereotypical character that feels too mundane to be any fun. His ‘Just Joking’ and ‘Kadi hass bhi liya karo‘ lend some occasional cute charm but mostly, the film resorts to Sardar gags that feel distasteful.
Mrunal Thakur tries very hard to look at ease but there’s something terribly artificial about the way she acts and the way she is styled in the film.
Ravi Kishan plays a man who is so hell-bent on deshbhakti that he randomly breaks into ‘Hindustan zindabad‘ whenever he is too happy. His character is mostly straight-faced, but like the audience, the actor too looks surprised by the staggering stupidity of the material.
Sanjay Mishra, Deepak Dobriyal, Ashwini Kalsekar are reduced to buffoonery, and that’s sad because there are times where Son of Sardaar 2 really needs their touch.
The joyless ride continues with soap opera-level plot developments before concluding in a jarring melodramatic change of tone.
Before the whole endeavour wraps up, Rohit Shetty appears out of nowhere and announces the next part of Golmaal.
Ajay Devgn smiles, which feels like an apology for the rubbish we just endured in the name of comedy.
Son of Sardaar 2 Review Rediff Rating:
