New Delhi: Vidyut Jammwal and Shivaleeka Oberoi starrer 'Khuda Haafiz 2' has nothing creditable in it besides it's action and the performances by supporting cast, veteran actors like Sheeba Chaddha, Dibyendu Bhattacharya, Rajesh Tailang. Vidyut is great in action sequences and fortunately does not have a lot of dialogue in the film. Shivaleeka, on the other hand, is awkward in most parts and cannot deliver her character in a promising manner.
Note: Spoilers Ahead
'Khuda Haafiz 2' begins with rewinding the broken lives of Vidyut( Sameer) and Shivaleeka( Nargis) who are now strangers in marriage after the happenings of the first part of the film wherein Nargis is kidnapped and sold in a brothel in Noman.
Their lives take a turn when a five-year-old girl Nandini comes to live with them and is later adopted by them.
The first half-hour of 'Khuda Haafiz 2' is painfully disjointed. It is fractured by its two leads who confusedly look around for some deus-ex-machina to save their performance. On a cinema screen, that uncomfort gets translated so badly that their performances feel superficial on so many levels.
After their 5-year-old daughter is kidnapped by a group of boys from a school, the pace and screenplay gets better. As suspense-action and a seemingly good background score enters the text, 'Khuda Haafiz 2' becomes watchable.
Yet, the film is only good in parts.
The part before the interval feels forceful; it's almost like everyone is just trying to get Vidyut on his ultimate action mission that starts from the second-half of the film.
From the corrupted police officers to Nargis leaving home after the death of their daughter, everything just scaffolds to prepping Vidyut for a mission.
Dialogues like 'apni shakal mat dikhana... jab tak un rapists ko...' amplifies this even further.
What stands out in the first half is the introductory sequence of Sheeba Chaddha who plays Thakur ji, an important political personality in Lucknow whose grandson rapes two school girls along with his friends.
There is a commendable scene where she is told about the rape of two school girls by her relative. Sheeba is excellent in her controlled and powerful demeanor.
Likewise, Dibyendu Bhattacharya as Rashid Qasai is great from start to finish, and especially the way he is introduced to the audiences.
After Sameer finds his daughter's dead body, he performs so poorly that it's almost painful to see such a horrific crime belittled by his performance. Had it not been for the supporting voiceover of Rajesh Tailang who portrays a journalist and the moral conscience of the film, nothing could have saved Vidyut.
As a narrative device, the director makes an intelligent use of voiceover coupled with closeups of a journalist who is not related to the crime but a solid performer. Rajesh's performance shadows Vidyut's poor acting skills in a scene that required a lot of emotional depth which the actor was not able to deliver. In fact, the filmmaker's use of a rack shot where the camera only focuses on a traumatized Sameer (Vidyut) and blurs out the surroundings to amplify his suffering also does not cover up the lead actor's poor performance there.
The post interval film opens to Vidyut getting all in action-mode, beginning with beating up a policeman who thinks having a daughter brings about 'badnami'. But, what the violence here and in the subsequent sequences throughout the second half does not answer is that ‘is violence justified’? Or that how many poeple would you kill to right a wrong, or to destroy an incessant rape-culture society?
The second-half of 'Khuda Haafiz 2' is definitely better in comparison to the first. The screenplay, background score and action-sequences are great.
The jail sequence and the score that compliments it is one of the good moments of the film. In this sequence, as audiences and as characters in the film, it seems that you're watching a movie within a movie. We as spectators watch what happens behind the curtain where Sameer is battling for his life against a giant carnivorous goon who has been sent to kill him.
Dialogues like , "Aaj to uska maas khaonga main...." heighten the intensity of action-violence which is very well portrayed.
Vidyut's fans might be content and compare the action in the first and second parts, and many will vouch for the first installment…
In another sequence, where we expect Thakur ji to meet her grandson, we see her in a face-off with Nargis warning her to ward off her husband from finding the culprits who raped and killed her daughter.
Nargis is good there and the thematic contradiction of Thakurji dressed in a black saree drinking raw and cold milk as to heighten her predatory nature is again commendable. Whether I overread it, I' m not sure but the juxtaposition of a prey-predator is worth mentioning.
The ghus-ke-marne-wala-sequence in the kasai-area is a little over the top and feels unreal on many levels.
After Vidyut kills one of the rapists, there is a catharsis sequence which should have been delivered at the climax of the film.
As a senior IPS officer gets involved and helps Vidyut because 'uski bhi ek beti hai' and Vidyut flying to Egypt for a final action sequence gets too draggy.
Egyptian music welcoming Sameer in a new country and him befriending an arms-dealer who helps him kill Bachu, the main culprit, in a car-chase that had to be included in the film because what is an action film without a car chase could have been done away with.
The climax of the film also has another intersting point where it is suggested outrightly that Thakur ji( perhaps, the reason why the masculine nomenclature) is infact a lesbian who is punished for her crimes.
In the end, all the bad people are killed and the good wins over evil still leaving space for a sequel to develop.
In all, 'Khuda Haafiz 2' is a formula action film that rests on the premise of 'there is pleasure in familiarity'. Nothing more than an average action flick which has some commendable sequences to save it.