Indian 2 Twitter review: Shankar and Kamal Haasan reunite for the sequel to their 1996 cult vigilante movie. However, the internet isn’t impressed.
What are fans saying?
An X user wrote on Friday morning, “#Indian2 – Underwhelming Performances Even the talented #KamalHaasan can’t save this sinking ship. His character feels like a rehashing of his previous roles, lacking the depth and nuance that made him a legend. The supporting cast fares no better that fail to leave an impact.”
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Indian 2 Movie Review
In the original Indian, a freedom fighter turns vigilante when he suffers a personal loss due to corruption and realises how it’s eroding the very nation that he sought to protect. And when he realises there might be a weed in his own home, in the form of his corrupt son, he decides to kill him and make it an example for others.
In this sequel, director Shankar explores the fallout that could happen if the character urges everyone in the country to clean up their homes in his footsteps. It’s a premise filled with dramatic potential, especially given the changes that have seen in the intervening years. When the first Indian came out, it was just a year ahead of the 50th year of the Indian independence and the country had just begun to move towards a liberalist economic policy, and putting nation first was still considered a virtue. But now, nationalism has come to mean something totally different, and social media has made it possible to paint villains as heroes and vice versa. So, it’s interesting to explore if Senapathi would still be a revered figure, and if he might be called Anti-Indian.
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However, Shankar goes about this exploration not with nuance but with excesses and caricatures that seem excessive even for a filmmaker like him who has always dealt with his subjects in the broadest of strokes. The story begins with a team of YouTubers led by Siddharth’s Chitra Aravindan coming across several instances of corruption and beginning a social media campaign in the hope that it brings Indian thatha back. And it works, with Senapathi, who’s now living as a martial arts guru in Taiwan, returns to the country to continue his battle against corruption.
He urges youngsters across the country to expose even their close ones, if they learn that they are corrupt. Shankar shows us the personal experiences that befall the youngsters, including Chitra Aravindan, who chose this idealistic path, while in parallel, gives us scenes of the vigilante dispensing his style of justice to corrupt rich men through the the martial art form Varma. But when Chitra Aravindan’s crusade results in a personal tragedy, he blames Senapathi for it and worse, turns him into a hateful figure. Meanwhile, the investigating officers who are after the freedom fighter are closing in. Can Indian thatha evade capture?
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The problem with Indian 2 is that it is filled with writing that lacks nuance and characters who are caricatures. Even in terms of scenes, all the visual excesses that Shankar throws at them – grand sets, visual effects, and frames filled with people – hardly touch us as there’s no emotional connect. In the original, everything was tied to Senapathi’s personal struggles. Here, his crusade feels empty, and more importantly, the character’s dignity goes for a toss. We begin to question why he decides to fight now after remaining silent over the corruption that has spread and metamorphosised into something monstrous during all these years.
The filmmaking also proves that it is perhaps time for reinvention from one of the trendsetting filmmakers who once frequently pushed the boundaries of our big-budget cinema. For here, Shankar often seems to be banking on tropes and visual cliches from his previous films. There are even call-backs to some of the moments from his earlier works that rather than feel cool leave us cringing. Even the action set pieces, while having distinct elements – a zero-gravity setting, a chase in which Senapathi is on a unicycle – hardly provide an adrenaline rush as they go on and on (perhaps due to the decision to release the film in two parts). It is left to Anirudh, who vainly tries to inject some energy into these portions.
Kamal Haasan, too, does his bit of heavy lifting, including going shirtless for a stunt scene, in a role that has scope only for prosthetic makeup and not performance.
It is only when the film explores the personal stakes that we care about it and realise what it could have been. We wish there had been more of scenes like the one in which Chitra Aravindan has to expose his father and suffers a loss due to his action. Perhaps, it would have been effective if the narrative had been a contained one, focusing strictly on this conflict, instead of being expansive in an effort to go pan-Indian.
About Indian 2
Indian 2 features an ensemble cast including Samuthirakani, Bobby Simha, Kajal Aggarwal, Siddharth, Rakul Preet Singh, and Priya Bhavani Shankar. Indian 2 has music by Anirudh Ravichander and has writers Jayamohan, Kabilan Vairamuthu and Lakshmi Saravanakumar on board. It is produced by Lyca Productions and has also released in Hindi and Telugu as Hindustani 2 and Bharateeyudu 2 respectively.
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