‘Sadak 2’ Movie Review: Predictable twists make this Sanjay Dutt-Alia Bhatt starrer exposé on godmen a franchise killer

Directed By
Mahesh Bhatt

Produced By
Mukesh Bhatt

Cast
Sanjay Dutt, Pooja Bhatt, Alia Bhatt, Aditya Roy Kapur, Jisshu Sengupta, Gulshan Grover, Makarand Deshpande, Priyanka Bose, Mohan Kapoor, Akshay Anand, Abdul Quadir Amin

Bollywood Bubble Rating

What It’s About
The film is about Sanjay Dutt’s depression after the death of his wife, Pooja Bhatt. Somehow, by the turn of fate, he ends up trying to help a young woman, Alia Bhatt, who is hell-bent on exposing a fake guru aka godman running an aashram. Will she succeed? Will Dutt be able to help her? Will she end up finding some deep dark secrets of her personal life? Well, for that you’ll have to watch the film.

What’s Hot
The music of the film by Jeet Gannguli, Ankit Tiwari, Samidh Mukherjee, Urvi, Suniljeet is the high point of the film. Plagiarism allegations aside, this is without a doubt the best movie album to have come out this year. Songs like Ishq Kamaal, Tum Se Hi, Shukriya, Dil Ki Purani are worth listening to over and over again.

Talking of the performances, there is no denying that Sanjay Dutt is at top-notch form. After a really long time, you will be able to see Sanjay Dutt cry in a film, and his blood-shot eyes emote what’s in his heart. However, the plot of the film couldn’t make the best use of his performance. Sad! It could have been a worthy comeback of Sanjay Dutt ever since he came out of prison.

The performances of the actors like Jisshu Sengupta, Priyanka Bose and Makarand Deshpande have been commendable. They are class actors and even if the screen space is less, they managed to leave a mark for themselves.

What’s Not
Well, everything else in the film is as bad as it can get.

To begin with, Alia Bhatt wasn’t in her top form. Even though she was the pivot of the plot, the film levied heavily on Sanjay Dutt and worked on his performance solely. Alia Bhatt was left to gather up the pieces of the second lead. Many pivotal scenes, especially the climax, doesn’t even feature Alia for a second. Quite sad! It seems she just wanted desperately to work with papa Mahesh Bhatt and therefore just hopped onto this film.

If I go by what Mukesh Bhatt had said that Sushant Singh Rajput was offered this film before Aditya Roy Kapur, I’m happy that he didn’t do this film. ‘Dil Bechara’ was a worthy send-off to his talent. Even though Aditya Roy Kapur looks dashing and overtly handsome, it’s too difficult to not notice the fact that he barely has scenes and lines in the movie. There is one whole monologue of his in the movie where he is actually opening up about his real self to Alia Bhatt, and unfortunately, even in that full scene his flashbacks are shown, and a decently long monologue doesn’t end up getting a face to it. A missed opportunity! It also seems that Aditya couldn’t say no to the Bhatts who gave him his first big blockbuster film, ‘Aashiqui 2’.

The makers of the movie professed that this was going to be a comeback for Pooja Bhatt. But I have to ask, WHERE WAS SHE? Except being hung as a frame in the wall and as a stand-frame on the car dashboard, Pooja Bhatt was nowhere. Her shots from the 1991 ‘Sadak’ have been put in places wherever need be in order to show her memories. How can that be called a comeback? Come on, is the audience an utter fool!

When you promise the audience that the ‘Badman’ Gulshan Grover is back in his villainous avatar, make sure you have him enough in the film. Showing him as an arm-amputee in a couple of blink-and-miss fight scenes isn’t worthy of his genius. Please don’t ruin nostalgic memories of his villainous roles by giving him such little and demeaning roles!

I won’t lie, all the nepotism debate aside, I was really expecting to see a great comeback to movie direction of the genius Mahesh Bhatt. But sadly, not only was I disappointed, I was left tearing my hairs out. I have a request to Mahesh Bhatt and his co-writer Sumitra Sengupta, that when you write a film laden with numerous twists and turns, make sure those twists and turns are BELIEVABLE. You both did a great job of adding so many twists in the film, but sadly all of them were sooooooooooooooooooooo 1990. Please, it’s 2020. Have some twists which the audience is not expecting. The ones you gave us in ‘Sadak 2’ could have been guessed by me even in my sleep.

Also Bhatt saab, the flashbacks used were also a bit too overdone. A little was great, but even when it comes at the climax, where Pooja Bhatt’s 1991 persona wakes a dying Sanjay Dutt and asks him to not give up in the fight, that’s just a bit too much. Could have used the 2020 Pooja Bhatt do the same, and made a greater impact.

Jay I. Patel’s cinematography was either outstanding in some scenes and terrible in some others. When you look back at the overall product, you realise that the places where you loved the cinematography were heavily reliant on the beautiful locales.

Sandeep Kurup’s editing could have been crisper. The 2-hour 13-minute film could have easily been cut short to a 1-hour 55-minute thing. Well, you can blame the director as much for that as much as the editor.

Verdict
Overall, this is a franchise killer. ‘Sadak 2’ had a great star cast even though all 3 of them are from film families, they’re still the better actors of the lot. I have totally overlooked the nepotism angle while watching the film, and even then, this turned out to be a head-sore. The basic one-liner of the plot was good, but when your execution is still stuck back in 1991, the end product had to suffer. After all, how much can even great actors lift up a film, if the screenplay isn’t worth the paper on which it’s printed on?

In closing I would just like to say, if you’re mighty bored sitting at home during this self-quarantine or if you’re a huge fan of Sanjay Dutt, then maybe watch it once, otherwise, AVOID. I am going with 1.5 stars, mostly for Dutt and the fantastic music. Mark my words, this will end up being one of those films whose songs you’ll listen even after 10 years and try to remember, ‘yeh kaun si movie ka gana tha?’ because the movie isn’t worth remembering!

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Also Read: ‘Khuda Haafiz’ Movie Review: Even Vidyut Jammwal’s raw action and Uzbekistan’s exotic locales can’t save this outdated film

Prateek Sur

Born a Movie Buff, working as a Film Critique and enjoying life as a Bollywood Reporter.

Email: editor@bollywoodbubble.com Phone: +91 8355910465