With Gadar 2: The Katha Continues, filmmaker Anil Sharma has managed to pull off quite a feat. He has revived the nostalgia of a 22-year-old film, came up with a script that defies common sense at several points, served it up with even more melodrama and got the whistles and claps coming in.
Gadar 2 is set 17 years after the events of Gadar: Ek Prem Katha, where the much-loved truck driver Tara Singh (Sunny Deol) had rescued his wife Sakeena (Ameesha Patel) from the clutches of his father-in-law Ashraf Ali (Amrish Puri) in Pakistan in 1954. Major General Hamid Iqbal (Manish Wadhwa) of the Pakistani military did not take kindly to Tara’s assault on their pride — we are told in a flashback at the beginning of the sequel — and Ashraf Ali was hanged for letting Tara go scott-free.
Fast forward to 1971: Tara enjoys a peaceful life with Sakeena and their son Charanjeet Singh aka Jeete (Utkarsh Sharma). Meanwhile, the clouds of an Indo-Pakistan war loom large over the horizon. One night, when he is transporting ammunition to Indian soldiers during a skirmish with Pakistani soldiers, Tara and a group of Indian soldiers are captured by the Pakistani army. They are presumed to be held captive in Lahore. The news leaves Sakeena shattered, prompting a young Jeete to take matters into his own hands. Using a forged passport, he ventures into Pakistan to find his father.
In a twist of fate, it is revealed that Tara did not land up in some army torture chamber but is instead in the hospital, lying in a coma. Jeete is taken hostage by Hamid Iqbal and like in the previous film, Tara embarks on a mission to rescue his son.
Neither logic nor laws of physics apply to what happens next as Tara gets into full-on action mode straight out of the coma. He and his son jump off vehicles on fire onto a moving train, unscathed. They dodge bullets fired by the Pakistani army by just waving their hand, move the jammed gun of a military tanker with bare hands and tear off metal chains like they are silk threads.
The climax is itself a sight to behold. Tara, tied with a rope to a wooden electric pole, not only manages to snap it into two but maniacally waves the loose ends of the wires to short-circuit the entire army barracks and set fire to their properties.
And when Tara is not on a maniac rampage, Gadar 2 tries to engage the audience with some romance, but with Jeete this time. In Pakistan, Jeete takes the job of a cook in a household as a cover for his mission. There he comes across Muskaan (Simratt Kaur), the daughter of the family, who is a fan of Rajesh Khanna. The two fall in love and Muskaan goes out of her way to help Jeete once she learns about his intentions.
And like Gadar, the sequel is jingoistic at its core. The dialogues are loud and preachy. Tara Singh still loves to scream his lungs out. No, he doesn’t pull out a hand pump this time, although there is a long sequence paying a hat-tip to that moment from the previous film.
To his credit, Sunny Deol makes Tara Singh a livewire yet again. His energetic portrayal is a pleasure to watch even when you feel like banging your head against a wall over the absurdity of the events. Utkarsh Sharma does make a splash, specially in the romantic scenes with Simratt Kaur. Ameesha Patel makes occasional appearances, only to shed a tear or two.
What’s sorely missing from Gadar 2 is a charismatic villain of the stature of Amrish Puri. Manish Wadhwa’s Hamid Iqbal, the antagonist in this film, is a one-dimensional character. Forget about complex motivations or nuanced character development, Iqbal just twirls his moustache and comes up with increasingly ludicrous schemes to thwart Tara’s plans.
The one aspect where the makers get it right is in rekindling the nostalgic value of the franchise. Gadar 2 begins with Nana Patekar’s voiceover taking us through the events of the previous instalment. Iconic scenes from Gadar return in flashback as do some old characters, like Gullu (Mushtaq Khan) and Abdul Ali (Ehsan Khan). The two superhit Gadar songs — Udd Jaa Kaale Kaava and Main Nikla Gaddi Leke — have also been recreated, with an aged Tara and his family.