Satyameva Jayate 2 REVIEW: Milap takes his unequivocal love for John Abraham 3 times higher with this mind numbing film

Director: Milap Zaveri

Cast: John Abraham, Divya Khosla Kumar

Bollywood Bubble rating: 1 star

“Abki Baar Milap Ki Sarkar,” was the first thought that crossed my mind when I watched Milap Zaveri’s directorial Satyameva Jayate 2. Starring John Abraham in a triple role, Milap Zaveri delivers a mind-numbingly stupid film which is anything but a tribute to the 80s and 90s cinema. With several references literally picked from Bollywood masala movies, Milap’s attempt at creating an over-the-top action film will leave you with an insane headache. Any fan of Manmohan Desai cinema would argue that comparing Satyameva Jayate 2 with that is absolutely unacceptable. Ardent desi fans must take offence of this, really.

Satyameva Jayate 2 is a sequel to the 2018 John Abraham starrer. This time Milap has taken his unequivocal love for John Abraham 3 times higher with an overdose of it which no one perhaps asked for. Satyameva Jayate 2 centres around John Abraham Vs John Abraham Vs John Abraham with no particular story in place. While I tried to find a story trail in the chaos and heavily packed action scenes aimed at promoting and cashing on John Abraham’s sharp cut body but failed miserably. It felt like Milap packed everything that he felt needed to be addressed, like a news bulletin highlight and even gave solutions to it, which is… wait for it violence. This looks like a script written at whimp with nothing fleshed out.

John Abraham as Home Minister Satya Balram Azaad, ACP Jay Balram Azaad, and Dadasaheb Azaad was a human version of the mighty Hulk. Even Mark Ruffalo would be shocked to see John pulling off some unbelievable stunts with sheer muscle power. In an attempt to show off the masculine side of his hero, Milap has really shoved logic off the window. For instance, towards the climax, we see John as Satya, Jay and Dadasaheb successfully stopping a chopper to fly off mid-air. I mean, not even Avengers can explain this. Also, the way police brutality has been glorified is horrifying. The entire film is all about John Calling John. It is honestly difficult to differentiate the character graphs of the three protagonists and gets tiring to only see him in almost every other frame. There are scenes where he probably tries to deliver but with a poor script like this, how much can an actor do anyway?

 

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Apart from John, Satyameva Jayate 2 also stars Divya Khosla Kumar as a politician but her role is restricted to being a caricaturist. In the one scene where she probably could have made a difference, Divya was so mechanical that it will not even move the hair strands on your body. If this is what defines ‘meaty role’, I might as well not add anything here. Gautami Kapoor, who is many years younger to John, plays his mother in a major part of the film. It is sad to see this is still happening with actors twice the age still romancing young girls while women being reduced to mere props.

While watching Satyameva Jayate 2, it really felt like Milap has not gotten over the 80s and 90s cinema at all, and uses that as an excuse to pass off his below-average films as entertainers. The dialogues are so poorly written that it makes you cringe in parts. The screenplay is messed up, oops, there is no screenplay in the first place for it to be messed with. The music is so poorly placed that I really hoped I had the option to skip. Oh wait, I would have skipped the entire movie in that case.

 

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To make things worse, the heavily infused hyper-nationalism and timely reminder of being an Indian, makes you yawn. There are forced elements introduced which are aimed to evoke a patriotic side in viewers but believe me, you would feel more patriotic not watching this. Another problem with the film is the toxic masculinity it promotes with outdated dialogues. If a film manages to use ‘Main chudhi pehen lunga’ as an abuse even today, I honestly have nothing more to add.

The cinematography and the camera work are only focused to make John look like the desi Hulk but fail miserably. There are a few dialogues which exposes the current state of the country but it gets missed in all the other chaos.

Honestly, Satyameva Jayate 2 is a slow torture of less than two and a half hour which will want you to buy a paracetamol immediately.

Also Read: Satyameva Jayate 2 Trailer: John Abraham and Divya Khosla Kumar starrer is a quintessential Hindi masala drama

Bhavna Agarwal

Assistant Editor at Bollywood Bubble. An ambivert who is currently high on K-dramas and K-Pop. A forever Bollywood fan, who continues to gush over solid stories and characters. Hit me up for a fine conversation over chai.

You can also reach me on – https://twitter.com/filmybugB