Sardar 2 Review: The Spy Who Bored Me

Sardar 2 has interesting spy games, but too many convenient shortcuts and a tedious runtime leave this sequel struggling to match the crisp, engaging original, argues Sreeju Sudhakaran.

IMAGE: Karthi in Sardar 2.

Okay, what is with all these movie thaathas who escape from the Indian government, after getting labelled terrorists or fugitives, and finding refuge in China? And how easy is it for them to slip back into their motherland without any visa requirements or embassy trips?

I wonder if Senapathi from Indian 2 and now Bose in Sardar 2 have been exchanging notes on the best ways to infiltrate the country. Maybe Bose would laugh in Senapathi’s face, pointing out that he did not need to murder his son to escape the country.

What he might not laugh about is returning in a sequel that is quite a disappointment compared to the original. Sure, Sardar 2 is not Indian 2 levels of abominable (‘Chitra Aravindan, social media!’), but it is still an underwhelming, boring affair compared to the crisp, fun outing that was Sardar.

Director P S Mithran has somehow managed to both overcook and undercook this one.

 

Chasing After A Bioweapon

Despite failing to prevent the pipeline project from being blasted and his father still carrying the terrorist label, Vijay Prakash (Karthi) has been promoted to a R&AW agent.

I do not remember him having a pet name in the first film, but people now call him Viji. The movie even forgets that he used to have a lawyer girlfriend (Raashii Khanna), who is nowhere to be seen.

For ease of typing, I am calling him Viji too. So Viji, who is underperforming in R&AW for reasons never explained, gets dumped into a dummy team with three close associates (Yogi Babu, Nizhalgal Ravi and Devadarshini). Meanwhile, R&AW is hunting for a former agent on the run codenamed Walrus (Achyuth Kumar).

Does R&AW in the movies actually do any other job, or is their sole task hunting down their own rogue agents? What does it say about their training measures when their own associates do not trust them anymore?

Anyway, Viji goes off on his own tangent and comes close to finding Walrus alongside a young veterinary doctor (Ashika Ranganath). During this search, he uncovers the existence of a dangerous bioweapon called Doku and a mercenary group called Black Dagger, led by the lethal Yogi (S J Suryah), who wants the weapon.

Doku holds a direct connection to his runaway father, Bose, who returns upon learning that the weapon could fall into the wrong hands.

Considering his past mission with this weapon left a significant emotional scar on Bose’s mind, it feels strange now that it was never once mentioned in the first film.

Also, where exactly was Rathore (Chunky Panday), the man who supposedly trained him into a top-tier R&AW agent? And why was Bose ever inducted into R&AW after making such a colossal blunder during his first mission?

Too Many Shortcuts

As far as setups go, Sardar 2 starts off with a promising strategy. Despite the humour involving Yogi Babu and Nizhalgal Ravi’s characters (which is limited to three to four scenes), there is a focused approach to the main plot.

No forced romance, no needless song sequences. The chase sequence in the opening act is thrilling, and even older Sardar gets a clap-worthy (re)intro scene near the interval even if it carried the vibes of Vikram‘s pre-interval sequence.

S J Suryah gets an attention-seeking introduction as the antagonist, drawing more theatre claps than Karthi’s intro. But why is Malayalam actor-director Jean Paul Lal stuck in what is essentially a thankless sidekick role?

You can spot specks of smartness in how Sardar 2 handles its spy games, and you can see its ambition in scaling up the bioweapon plotline. Yet, you cannot ignore the screenplay’s constant shortcuts to move characters from one tight situation to another.

For example, in the 1981 flashback involving Bose, we are told R&AW has only 49 hours to enter Tokyo, secure the target and return to base. The next time we see Bose and senior agent Zara (Malavika Mohanan), they are already in Japan with the package.

Sure, they do not have time, but where is the ticking-clock tension?

Later, we see the duo running after a cargo plane about to take off. In the very next scene, they are inside the plane. Not everyone can be Tom Cruise, but this is not smart editing. These are just convenient cuts.

The cargo plane fight scene that follows was fine, but it recalls several Hollywood films with similar sequences (like Uncharted). This lack of originality plagues not just the other fight scenes, but the entire bioweapon plot.

The Spy Who Bored Me

The first Sardar film had a social cause at its heart regarding how corporate exploit water usage by bringing in a monopoly, seamlessly integrated into the plot.

The sequel uses the bioweapon storyline to educate the audience on the dangers of antibiotic overuse, but this time the integration feels forced and even gets into a strict lecturing mode. It also happens at a strange moment with a jarring tonal shift.

Right when the movie is in a very serious territory, the villain begins to school the two comical characters about what they ingest in the name of medicine and food. I liked the performances of S J Suryah, Yogi Babu and Nizhalgal Ravi there, but the odd placement ruins the tempo and tone.

This is just one symptom of a long, bloated second half that offers little to excite you, not even the sight of a dual Karthi sharing frames.

You see the missed opportunities here. The first film gave Bose and Vijay only one shared scene, while Sardar 2 provides plenty. Yet, by keeping its eyes glued to the bioweapon plot, the movie does nothing to expand their bond.

In fact, there is more emotional investment in the history between Bose and Yogi. Even then, the reveal about Yogi’s past would have landed with a stronger impact had it dropped during their first face-to-face encounter.

The screenplay’s convenient shortcuts come into play again during the Vande Bharat sequence where Viji tries to foil a terrorist plan, and during the climax where the father-son duo figures out Yogi’s endgame. The finale attempts an emotional touch that, alas, just does not work, purely because the movie forgot to build the foundation required to make it effective.

Karthi’s Dual Performances Not Enough

Visually, Sardar 2 is just about okay. You can easily spot the use of AI in several frames. I will not get into the debate of using AI to enhance a scene, but the film should at least do a better job of masking it.

As for the performances, Karthi does a good enough job in his dual roles, though I did not find the act as engaging as in the first film, which benefited from better writing and creative treatment. S J Suryah is entertaining in parts, but as a whole, he is reduced to a villain with ordinary megalomaniac intentions.

Both female leads, Malavika Mohanan and Ashika Ranganath, have important roles that offer scope to make a mark, but their characters do not get enough leeway. Malavika, in fact, has far less screen time than I expected. The lovely Rajisha Vijayan has more of a cameo, and her spunky but brief performance makes you wish the movie allotted her more scenes.

During that lecture scene, Yogi tells his detainees a tale of greed about two men who pump too much air into a life-saving tyre until it bursts.

The makers of Sardar 2 should have listened to their own story and delivered a robust sequel that does justice to the first film. Or just not make one for the sake of it. Alas, what we got instead was an over-inflated sequel that just didn’t know when to quit.

Sardar 2 Review Rediff Rating: