Ab Tak Chhappan 2 Movie Review, Ab Tak Chhappan 2 Review, Ab Tak Chhappan 2 Movie Review and Rating, Ab Tak Chhappan 2 Public Talk

Cast: Nana Patekar, Ashutosh Rana, Vikram Gokhale, Gul Panag
Director: Aejaz Gulab
Producer: Raju Chada, Gopal Dalvi
Music: Amal Mallik
Timesofap Rating: 2/5

Story:

Ex-encounter specialist, Sadhu Agashe is called back for a special case involving the Mumbai crime scene. After being nudged by the law and cases pending on his name, Sadhu’s retirement is going by just fine as he finds happiness in fishing and rowing off in village waters along with his teenage son. Finding pleasures in his leisure time, Sadhu is approached by the Home Minister for re-taking his position as the encounter specialist and clean up the mess. Still guilty for his wife’s murder, Sadhu intially brushes off the offer in the lieu of protecting his son. Although after being forced by his son to rejoin the force, a confident Sadhu gets back on the job.

What trails ahead is his journey. A lot had changed since he left the force and with the blurred lines between poilitical and the underworld, will Sadhu be able to remain true to his job?

Performances:

Nana Patekar is a great actor and while he made Sadhu Agashe’s character unforgettable in the prequel, thanks to the film’s poor storyline, fails to pack a punch with this one. I recently watched him in a brilliant biopic on Prakash Amte and after that this Bollywood come back is quite disappointing.

Gul Panag plays a feisty crime journalist but does not impress at all. I have no clue why but in majority of the scenes her pitch is extremely high. Well, we are not deaf eh! It is probably best if she continues with politics for now.

The supporting cast includes Ashutosh Rana, Mohan Agashe, Dilip Prabhavalkar and Vikram Gokhale. In spite of being actors with great potential, they are highly underplayed in this film.

Analysis:

In times of Singham and Baby where we have been fed with stealthy and sleek ways of handling the crime scene, Ab Tak Chhappan 2 seem to be still stuck in the 90s. Considering that I am a huge fan of the first film, I was more than excited to see Nana Patekar make a come back with this film although it turned out to be a huge downer. Shimit Amin had given us a Marvell of sorts when it comes to espionage dramas and sadly Aejaz Gulab does not live up to it in the sequel.

Other than being highly predictable, the story has ample of loopholes. For starters, the entire character of Gul Panag. She is a crime journalist who is also writing a book which her late father could not finish. Well, in the techie era that we live in, Panag’s character prefers to look for criminals by passing around photographs to random strangers. In one of the scenes where she attends a press conference, she is seen yelling at the home minister. Well darling you are journalist not his wife, that’s not how you interrogate unless you are the police.

Okay, that was one flawed character but the rest, the script is extremely weak and I cannot even commit the crime of comparing it to its prequel. Just a few dialogues such as “Doosre ke kaan ko kamod nai bananeka” make you laugh in bits and parts. While majority of film makers prefer scripts with punchlines, this film thrived of philosophy all through. It’s all about the rights and wrongs and being inside and outside the system. Phew! If only they had cut down on the ‘gyaan’ and made it Chulbul Pandey style, this cop film could have fared well!

Technical aspects:

If the script is weak, what is the one thing that the audience can fall back on? A decent direction. Well, for this film, it is even weaker than its script. Aejaz Gulab uses the weirdest camera angles. Let alone the camera angles, the film’s sync is so bad that it looks like it has been shot on a regular camera. The cuts in between the shots are irregular and random and the film lacks any kind of polish. It seems like the editing was done on a jiffy and there are elements patched here and there.

An extremely amateurish direction spoils this already predictable story even more. There is also an uneven background score which does not blend well with the frames. I found the action sequences so shoddy that for a minute or two I thought I was watching some 80s film. It is quite clear that Aejaz Gulab has a lot to learn and for starters he may need to learn more about handling the camera well. It nearly made me dizzy and so a warning for people with Vertigo, this camera work is tricky for you.

Verdict:

Ab Tak Chhappan 2 is all talk and no play. There is no killer action or pace like its prequel. It lacks the nerve to make up for a entertaining cop drama. Shoddy direction and editing spoil all the fun.