The verdict on Mahesh Bhatt’s Sadak 2 is out. Although there are no box-office numbers to back the public opinion because the film premiered on a streaming platform, the makers can’t escape the writing on the wall — the film has got a backlash almost unanimously from the public and the media alike. Even though the film’s trailer had garnered a lot of negative talk, there was a sizeable section of the public which felt, the Sadak sequel would not be as bad as the opinion on the trailer, which in any case seemed to be the handiwork of trolls on social media, making it (the trailer) the second-most hated video on YouTube ever.
First things first. The negative public reports of the Sanjay Dutt and Alia Bhatt starrer are not just because trolls had bad-mouthed the film when its trailer was uploaded on YouTube. That may have added to the foul reports of the film, but even those who neither spoke negatively about the trailer nor approved of the highly disdainful comments on YouTube have been extremely critical of the film after its release. Their opinions about the film, streaming on Disney+ Hotstar, range from the boring to the horrendous. So how did Mahesh Bhatt go so wrong?
The filmmaker had announced his retirement from direction after delivering three directorial ventures — Zakhm, Yeh Hai Mumbai Meri Jaan and Kartoos — in 1999. In the previous year, he made two films — Duplicate and Angaaray. In other words, he decided to call it quits after a string of five flop films. Direction is an art and a maker needs to constantly be in form to direct a film. Springing back into action after a hiatus of 21 years is hardly the best way to make a film, more so if one’s last many films (all the five films mentioned hereinabove, and many more before that) have fared badly at the box-office. Direction is a job which requires one to be up-to-date and completely in synch with the young generation because they are the ones who often make a film a hit or a flop. Even a novice would be able to tell, after watching the film, that the story of Sadak 2 is nothing which the youth could identify with. In that sense, it is so 1980s.
Fox Star Studios had, after Mahesh and Mukesh Bhatt’s Mr. X and Hamari Adhuri Kahani (both released in 2015) severed ties with the Bhatts because they felt, the brothers were not making contemporary cinema. The offer of Sadak 2 went to Fox from the Bhatts. The carrot offered was that it would star Alia Bhatt and would be a sequel to their earlier hit, Sadak. Additionally, it was mentioned that Mahesh Bhatt would return to direction after more than 20 years. Of course, to Fox, nothing mattered more than Alia’s name in the roster. The actress has such an outstanding record of successes, hits and super-hits to her credit that the corporate house was ready to bet on just her name. Says an insider, “The first narration of the script of Sadak 2 to Fox was a nightmarish experience. The creative and marketing teams of Fox were literally struggling to keep themselves awake while Mahesh Bhatt narrated them the script.” When Fox tried to reason out with Mahesh Bhatt that the script seemed dated, the writer-director did not like it. However, having committed to back the film as joint producer, Fox found it difficult to back out of the project. And that’s how a film was greenlit despite its pathetic script. Reportedly, nobody from the Fox team was shocked with the outcome of the film when it premiered on Disney+ Hotstar on 28th August. They knew what was on the cards.
Mahesh Bhatt should never have taken the decision to stage a comeback. Frankly, why did he decide to go back on his word that he was hanging up his boots? The temptation of directing his super-successful daughter, Alia, must have been too much to resist. It is believed that Alia agreed to work in Sadak 2 if and only if her dad would be calling the shots. Even if that were so, Mahesh Bhatt should have consciously kept himself out of the scripting because the story and screenplay of the sequel, co-written by him, suggests that he is clueless about what the audience today wants to watch in a film. He didn’t do that even after the Fox team warned him that the script would not find favour with the youngsters. Twenty-odd years is a very very long break. Audience tastes change every five years today, and if Bhatt thought, even today, he could understand public tastes like he did when he was a prolific filmmaker, he was wrong. Most big and successful filmmakers live in the illusion that they are invincible because they’ve been there, done that. But they fail to appreciate that time and tide wait for no man. When staging a comeback after two decades, Bhatt should’ve realised that just being a part of the film industry in the last 20 years was not enough for him to keep abreast of the changes that had been taking place in audience tastes. Had he been wise enough to comprehend this, he would not have given his daughter the worst film of her career so far. Yes, even Alia’s Kalank looks like a masterpiece when compared with Sadak 2. The multi-star cast Kalank may have tanked at the box-office but one cannot deny that it was made passionately. Unfortunately, in Sadak 2, even the passion seems to be missing.
Anyway, the Bhatts have made a neat packet of many crores of rupees in Sadak 2, and so has Fox — and this, despite the fact that Sadak 2 had to bypass the theatrical platform. All the losses have been transferred to the streaming platform, Disney+ Hotstar, a sister concern of Fox which has merged into Disney.