Sadak 2 - A film that shouldn't have been made !

Sadak 2 is the kind of film that film critics have to see, so that you don't have to...

Hi guys, Just finished watching Sadak 2 on Hotstar and here is my quick review of the film.

Honestly I thought that the hate that the films trailer got when it released because of the whole nepotism and sushant singh rajput conspiracy angle was unfair. yes, the trailer was bad, but its just a trailer. And any film good/bad/ugly is a work of art, and one can't or rather shouldn't discard it without actually watching the whole film. Mahesh Bhatt himself was an outsider when he stared off, and he with his skills had made himself an A list director in Bollywood. that is an outsider success story as any. 

So with an open mind and low expectation i decided to watch Sadak 2. and here is the afermath.

The  original 1991 superhit SADAK, was a story about a poor suicidal taxi driver, who finds a reason to live by rescuing Pooja from the clutches of an evil transgender pimp named Maharani. 

In Sadak 2 the story is the pretty much but - instead of Pooja Bhatt its Alia Bhatt, instead of Evil Pimp Maharani its an Evil Godman Guruprakash and instead of a taxi, its an Audi.

baki the treatment, villians, the dialogues, the melodrama, even the background score sab kutch is just typical 1990's stuff.. 

all with "Mein tumhe marte dam tak nahin bhoolungi" 

to an ullu (owl) named Kumbhkaran 

and Badman Gulshan Grover doing his thing. 

The only thing missing was Deepak Tijori who as you all know was in every film in the 90's 

There is absolutely nothing to write home about, when i first saw that the villian is a Godman, 

I thought that Mahesh Bhatt would perhaps mine this aspect into a socio-polical commentary about the times we live in - where faith and politics along with media form a deadly cocktail which is consuming the minds of the common man.

but sadly enough - the man does no such thing. its just a villian, a bad one at that.

Mahesh bhatt back in his days also had a knack of extracting great performances

 eg - Anupam Kher in Saransh and Daddy. 

Shabana Azmi in Arth, 

Sreedevi in Gumrah, 

Ajay devgan in Zakhm & Najayaz

and who else but Sadashiv amrapurkar who was terrific as Maharani in the original Sadak. but here apart from Sanjay Dutt who is clearly trying hard to give this nonsense script a serious and sincere effort, there is no other noteworthy performance. Just overacting, with people making faces and speaking in weird ways.

the 1990's was a different era, the kind of movies that were made were different, Mahesh Bhatt was at his prolific best churning out film after film, he had as much as 5 releases in 1991 itself. the year sadak released also saw Dil hai ki manta nahin and Junoon by the same director.

30 years have passed, 3 decades.  

The original Sadak had some fantastic songs that are still hummable, this one doesn't even have that. 

All in all Sadak 2 is kind of film that i call as occupational hazard for film reviewers and critics, the kind of film that you have to watch so that you appreciate good cinema when you see it. the kind of film that we have to watch so that you (the viewer) doesn't have too)

Sadak 2 is on DisneyHotstar.