Critics rating: 1 Stars

Cast:  Nana Patekar, Vikram Gokhale, Ashutosh Rana, Gul Panag.

Direction: Aejaz Gulab

Produced: Raju Chada, Gopal Dalvi

Written: Nilesh Girkar

Genre: Crime

Duration: 95 Mins

A prequel rehash meets a student film treatment to give us a slew of clichés which probably only got made due to the predecessor’s success. Incidentally, the first film was released on 27th February too, in 2004. The coincidence or any semblance of similarity ends there.

Sadhu Agashe (Nana Patekar) is older and more restrained with his rage. His wife’s murder years ago has him keeping a low profile as a fisherman in a Goan village where he lives with his son Aman (Tanmay Jahagirdar), far from the madding crowd and the numerous court cases against him. Not for long. The state’s Home Minister Jagirdar (Vikram Gokhale) is willing to overlook his record for his itchy finger. A team of non-descript cops we will not care about make occasional appearances to obey him, unlike the diverse and sympathetic group from the first film.

The rest of the story is about shoot-outs, killings, revenge killings and double crosses, all of which are highly predictable because of the limited characters and the poor recycling of the original plot. Ab Tak Chhappan 2 begins with a rambling, philosophising monologue by Sadhu where he spouts original gems like, “Force kissi ke baap ki jaagir nahi hai” and “There is no reality, there are only perceptions.” The pointlessness of certain exchanges, obvious foreshadowing, blatant beeping of cuss words and the poor dubbing make it all the more jarring. An overbearing background score does not improve matters.

 

The stand-out negative in the film is the camerawork, which would take the viewers back to Ram Gopal Verma’s Department (at least for the ones who ventured to see it). There are low angle shots from near the feet of the characters with an excessive use of handheld camera that give the scenes a documentary look. The camera follows a hand putting a phone on the table, gives the audience a visual perspective of keyboards, a steering wheel and a box of sweets. On at least occasions, two characters are framed in such a way that one of them has their head out of the frame, which looks awkward even if the intention is to draw attention to anything they are holding (an unnecessary manoeuvre). Credit is due to one chase sequence which is shot effectively but that will go unnoticed because it comes at a point where the interest has drastically waned.

 

Nana Patekar is in top form and seems to favour the round glasses look, no different from the one Jean Reno wore in Léon: The Professional. His firebrand character deserved a better comeback vehicle than something that will be rejected even by his most hardcore fans. A talented supporting cast like Vikram Gokhale, Govind Namdeo and Gul Panaghas little to no contribution to the story. So keep to the original film and avoid an encounter with this one.