Subaskaran, Lyca Productions and Red Giant Movies’ Hindustani 2 (dubbed from the Tamil film Indian II; UA) is the sequel to Hindustani.
After waging a war in India against corruption, Veerasekaran Senapathy (Kamal Haasan), a retired army officer, is now settled in Taipei. He is forced to come back to India after Chitra (Siddharth) and his three friends start a social media campaign to call him back to fight the growing corruption in the country. Senapathy returns to India and takes on the corrupt people one after another. He uses the Varm Kala to battle corruption. What happens thereafter?
Shankar has written a routine story which offers no novelty. In a bid to make it appear contemporary, he resorts to terms like ‘social media’, ‘viral’, etc. but the routineness of the core topic (of corruption) negates the freshness sought to be introduced because of recourse to the aforementioned terms. Shankar’s screenplay is dull and boring. Senapathy visiting different states in India to tackle corruption, and speaking in the local language there (Gujarati, Punjabi, etc.) is nothing but overindulgent writing. Because the drama is so weak, the audience often wonder whether all this is done just so that they can be misled into believing that this is novelty of a different kind. Of course, nothing of the sort happens because the viewers are far more smart. Also, Senapathy rambling endlessly about corruption gets on the public’s nerves because corruption is not new, everyone knows what it is! Ditto for the Tamil shlokas mouthed by Senapathy. They will make no sense to the Hindi film-going audience. The screenplay gives the impression that the writer has thoughtlessly put in so much that the drama ultimately becomes unwieldy. The whole track of the commoners going against Senapathy looks contrived. What’s rather weird is that even people, who haven’t lost their near and dear ones, join those who’ve lost their family members because of the society cleansing crusade of Senapathy. Frankly, why should the ones, who haven’t lost anyone, revolt against Senapathy? After all, they would stand to gain because of Senapathy’s war against corruption! The climax, in which Senapathy is riding a unicycle, is so long-drawn that it almost seems as if the writer, director and actor were thrilled about the unicycle and, therefore, decided to go in for the overkill. Even otherwise, the heroics of Senapathy in the climax look a bit too much if only because Kamal Haasan (who plays Senapathy) does not have too much of a fan-following among the Hindi film-goers. All in all, the crux of the drama is so weak that even the novelty in other aspects irritates rather than entertaining.
Dialogues, written by G. Chandrashekhar, are average. Several of the dialogues mouthed by Kamal Haasan are actually irritating because they tend to give the impression that he is lecturing — that too, about a topic which needs no explanation whatsoever.
Kamal Haasan goes overboard as Senapathy. He seems to be in love with himself and that comes through in many scenes. Although his acting is good, the effort to impress the viewers in each and every scene and shot gets on people’s nerves. Siddharth is earnest as Chitra. Rakul Preet Singh does well but she hardly gets any scope. Bobby Simha is very good as CBI officer Pramod. Priya Bhavani Shankar acts ably in the role of Aarti. Jagan makes his mark as Thambesh. Rishi acts naturally as Rishi. Samuthirakani delivers a fine performance as Chitra’s father, Varadarajan. Nedumudi Venu has his moments as Pramod’s father. Vivek is entertaining as Pramod’s assistant. Gulshan Grover is appealing. Zakir Hussain does well. Piyush Mishra makes a fair impression. Renuka shines as Aarti’s mother. Kalyani Natarajan is realistic as Chitra’s mother. Manobala is impressive in the role of Thambesh’s brother-in-law. Iman Annachi is good as Rishi’s uncle. Delhi Ganesh, Thambi Ramaiah, Marimuthu and the others are adequate.
Shankar’s direction is nothing but overindulgence of a different level. His narration often prompts the viewer to concentrate on the form rather than on the substance — probably because the substance is sub-standard. In the absence of an engrossing script, the huge canvas of the film looks like a colossal waste of money by the director. Anirudh’s music is not of the popular variety. Another minus point of the songs is that in the film, they are often incomprehensible because the sound is unclear. Lyrics (Kumaar, Manoj Muntashir Shukla and Kausar Munir) are ordinary. Song picturisations (by Bosco and Baba Bhaskar) are nice but they are so typically South Indian in flavour that the Hindi film-going audience will not like them. Anirudh’s background music is good but not excellent. Ravi Varman’s cinematography is fantastic. Action and stunt scenes (Anbariv, Ramazan Bulut, Peter Heins, Anl Arasu and V. Thyagarajan) afford thrill. T. Muthuraj’s production designing is grand. Sreekar Prasad’s editing is loose. Dubbing is proper.
On the whole, Hindustani 2 is a colossal waste of time, money and resources. It will entail huge losses and will be remembered as a disaster.
Released on 12-7-’24 at Inox (daily 4 shows) and other cinemas of Bombay thru PEN Marudhar Cine Entertainment. Publicity: fair. Opening: dull. …….Also released all over. Opening was not up to the mark.