A decent sequel that earns its biggest moments and then talks itself into a longer runtime than it needs.
The opening chapter is the high point — the introduction of Ranveer Singh’s character and the sequence where he picks up arms to defend his family is genuinely mind-blowing, and exactly what I wanted from a second installment in this franchise. From there, the film puts in the work to establish him inside Lahore’s underworld in real detail, and there is a satisfying, hard-edged catharsis in watching him pick off, one by one, the terrorists who have wronged India and Indians.
What hurts the film is the runtime, and this time I am not in a generous mood — chiefly because of the very long fights with Arjun Rampal that the story simply did not need. Pacing is uneven throughout. Some characters get written off in a blink (the SP being the clearest example), while others are loaded with exposition-heavy dialogue that drags the whole middle stretch. There was no good reason to spend so much screen time building out Arjun Rampal’s family. I was particularly taken aback that the film hands him a daughter with Down syndrome as a way to make him more relatable. He is the villain — what was the need to soften a genuinely evil man?
The ending lands well enough, but it also feels like Aditya Dhar wanted to tie up every loose thread, including the ones I had stopped caring about — the poison engineered by the Indian Army for instant assassinations being a clear example.
Ranveer puts his whole life into this performance, and that energy carries the film through its weakest stretches. Sanjay Dutt and R. Madhavan show up and give the world weight; Sara Arjun and Arjan Panwar round out the family side of things. It is a good watch on any given day. I just wish it had stayed grounded in the realistic portrayal of goons that made the first film hit so hard, instead of leaning into the theatrics.
Rating: 3/5