You expect Kamal Haasan’s film to be special. He is, after all, one of the legit superstars of the Tamil film industry. His latest film, though, ‘Indian 2’, directed by S Shankar, is nothing short of a boredom-fest. It is a sequel to the 1996 vigilante thriller ‘Indian’, which received a good response from the audience. However, the sequel, in which Haasan reprises his role of a freedom fighter-turned-vigilante, is the most forgettable film of the year at its best.
The story is the same as that of ‘Indian’. Corruption is rising in the country and Senapathy will keep it in check. His ideas of decimating the evil of his nation are strictly violent. The story is set three decades after the last time Senapathy was spotted in action. In ‘Indian 2’, you see a teacher jumping out of a building because an officer asks for a bribe, and everyone is looking out to earn some extra income. In a failed attempt to make you emotional, you also get a case of student suicide. The boy dies because his father fails to pay his education loan. All this increasing darkness sets a brilliant stage for Senapathy to rise again. It would have been better had he remained hidden, though.
‘Indian 2’ mocks Kamal Haasan, and makes everything in the film look garish, stagey and costumey. It treats its audience as mere caricatures and expects them to be foolish. The whole idea here is to invoke a patriotic appeal, but it lacks even that. There are no songs worth remembering, nor any dialogues. Even the action takes a backseat in this head-spinning show of lopsided nationalism.
This is probably the poorest film from Kamal Haasan, otherwise a wonderful actor with a solid screen presence. ‘Indian 2’ looks like the most abrupt juxtaposition of meaningless scenes with no coherence whatsoever. That’s not even the worst part. It’s the fact that we will soon get ‘Indian 3’.
