‘HEROPANTI 2’ REVIEW | 29 April, 2022

Click https://bit.ly/komal408 if the above video does not autoplay.

Nadiadwala Grandson Entertainment’s Heropanti 2 (UA) is the second film in the Heropanti (2014) franchise. In this, Babloo, also known as RJ (Tiger Shroff), works as a computer hacker. Intermittently, he works for the government of India and dreaded criminal Laila (Nawazuddin Siddiqui). Babloo is in love with Inaaya (Tara Sutaria) who is Laila’s sister. When Babloo is working for Laila, the latter wants the former to hack all the computers of all the banks for him on a single day so that he can transfer everyone’s money into his own bank account. Does Babloo help Laila achieve his evil dreams? There is also a track of Babloo’s simpleton mother (Amrita Singh).

Sajid Nadiadwala has written a story which keeps the character of Babloo of Heropanti alive. However, the story is not very exciting. It is also confusing. Yes, it has elements of love, romance, emotions, melodrama, good versus evil, action, etc., but lack of novelty reduces the impact of the drama. Rajat Arora’s screenplay (with additional writing by Jagdish Sharma) is also very confusing as it oscillates between the present and the past. The audience often gets confused between scenes of Babloo when he was Babloo and when he is rechristened RJ. Besides, in spite of being a masala screenplay, it doesn’t engage the viewers so much that they would feel like they are part of the unfolding drama. In other words, the audience watches the proceedings quite passively. Yes, they do applaud the action and stunt scenes at times, but they don’t get too involved in the screenplay if only because it moves on a predictable path and is also confusing. Explained differently, the viewers find it difficult to understand where the flashbacks begin and where they end or, in other words, the linear path of the story. The romance between Babloo and Inaaya is not heartwarming. Similarly, the emotions between Babloo and his mother don’t seem organic and appear to be added like in a recipe for an entertainer. All in all, the screenplay seems to be structured to make a wholesome drama. No harm in that but the unfortunate part is that the audience can see through the attempt to add ingredients with the intention of adding the key elements of a commercial fare. The light scenes of Laila definitely entertain the viewers. Rajat Arora’s dialogues are fiery at places and ordinary at other places.

Tiger Shroff looks very handsome and breathes fire in the action and stunt scenes. But the stage has come when Tiger needs to invest in his performance because his action scenes afford thrill to an extent only. His acting inn the film is fair, but more performance-oriented characters and roles will stand Tiger in good stead in times to come. If he does not concentrate on performance-driven roles, he will inadvertently tire his fans. Tara Sutaria does not have a role of substance. As Inaaya, she looks glamorous and does a fair job. Nawazuddin Siddiqui is excellent in the role of Laila. His performance and dialogue delivery entertain. Amrita Singh has her moments as Babloo’s mother. Zakir Hussain makes his presence felt in the role of Asad Khan. Naresh Gosai (as Dogra), Kecha (as Wong), Oliver (as Zahid Malik), Vikas Verma (as Ustad), Uday Bhanu Maheshwar (as Hussain), Mark Smith (as Mark), Sajjad Delafrooz (as Ranjit Shenoy), Saharsh Shukla, Kanwalpreet Singh, Pankaj Kansara, Nikul Bhupinder Singh Sachdev (all four as Babloo’s friends), Navneet Malik (as Inaaya’s boyfriend) and the rest lend routine support. Kriti Sanon adds glamour in a special appearance in a song-dance number.

Ahmed Khan’s direction is formulaic. He seems to have simply added ingredients in a routine story to churn out a film with different ingredients to cater to different kinds of audiences. Cohesiveness in his narration is missing. A.R. Rahman’s music is good. All the songs are quite tuneful but superhit songs are missing. Mehboob’s lyrics are mass-appealing. Song picturisations (choreography by Ahmed Khan, Prince Gupta and Rahul Shetty) are eye-filling. A.R. Rahman’s background music is okay. Kabir Lal’s cinematography is very nice. Action and stunt scenes (Ram Chella and Lakshman Chella, Parvez Shaikh and Kecha Khamphakdee) are thrilling and will be loved by Tiger’s fans. Manini Mishra’s production designing and Atin Dubey’s art direction are of good standard. Rameshwar S. Bhagat’s editing ought to have been sharper and needed to be more viewer-friendly so that chances of confusion in their minds could’ve been reduced.

On the whole, Heropanti 2 is a very ordinary fare and will, therefore, not be able to do much at the ticket windows. Strange and unbelievable as it may sound, K.G.F. Chapter 2 (dubbed), now in its third week, will prove to be a formidable opposition to this film.

Released on 29-4-’22 at Inox (daily 7 shows) and other cinemas of Bombay thru AA Films. Publicity: very good. Opening: good in PVR and Inox chains only (for obvious reasons). …….Also released all over. Opening was good in the PVR and Inox chains of multiplexes but not in other chains and single-screen cinemas.