After a point in Commando 2, it stops mattering who is fighting whom and for what. Indian men are running around and beating each other up in Taiwan, Malaysia and Thailand and you really can’t care less. But you do pray that they don’t stop fighting. Because whenever they do, they have to act and that is when you beat yourself up.
Obviously, this film is designed around its hero — Vidyut Jammwal, who’s spent a lot of time in the gym and a lot of money on protein shakes. But his baritone, if you close your eyes, sounds uncannily like Irrfan Khan. So when you combine a voice like that with muscles protruding out of the body like kebabs on a skewer, it’s a ewwww experience to start with.
The full title of the film is Commando 2: The Black Money Trail, trying to be the first film to slip the demonetisation drive into the narrative. So there’s some big baddie called Vicky Chaddha, the “dalaal” of Indian politicians and businessmen hoarding black money in secret foreign accounts. Or some mumbo jumbo like that.
Karan (Vidyut), the same Indian army commando from the 2013 film, has now been inducted into a special cell to eradicate black money from the system. He is sent along with three other officers including an encounter specialist Bhavna (Adah Sharma) to bring Vicky back to India.
Before all the action begins, Commando 2 briefly turns into an Abbas-Mustan film where every scene upturns the information provided in the earlier scene. Who actually is Vicky Chaddha, which of the four Indian police officers actually want to bring him back, who is siding with whom.... Twist pe twist and more twists pe even more twists till absolutely nothing makes sense at all.
And then there is the masterclass of acting from every member of the cast. Between Vidyut, Adah, Esha Gupta and Freddy Daruwala, there’s enough wood out there to open a furniture store. Even the best of action stars in the West manage to pull off acts that don’t embarrass them. No such luck here as every performance is worse than the other. Surprising that the film is directed by Deven Bhojani, who’s such a fine actor himself.
Yes there are good action set-pieces but nothing that you haven’t seen before. Vidyut Jammwal’s best screentime is still as the bad guy in Force. Those who believe there’s a hero in him somewhere in that mutton ki dukaan, need to chicken out sooner or later.
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