Movie review 'Ab Tak Chappan 2': Aching for action

Cast: Nana Patekar, Vikram Gokhale, Govind Namdev, Ashutosh Rana, Gul Panag, Mohan Agashe, Raj Zutshi
Director: Aejaz Gulab
Rating: 2 stars

Director Aejaz Gulab’s Ab Tak Chhappan 2 is short, but it seems long. That’s because it feels like a drawn-out interlude, a slow, lazy respite from all that action in Shimit Amin’s 2004 Ab Tak Chhappan. Ab Tak Chhappan 2 is written and plays out like the mandatory warm-up session before beginning again, before the real thing. I hope the real thing comes soon because Sadhu Agashe (Nana Patekar) is in very good form. And now that he has shed all the familial baggage, he is ready to do some truly thrilling dhishkiyaon-dhishkiyaon.

As has become the norm in Nana Patekar films, here too he in under investigation for his actions. And, as always, they involve voluntary slaughter in full public view.
Again, as always, he is allowed a long and candid soliloquy. He shoots from the hip, as always. And, as always, the men inquiring into his conduct are mere spectators, stunned into silence by his honest as a mirror elocution. All this places him in a very special hero category: A) he is the honest, suffering common man; B) he is also a slightly sanki, courageous man who has the licence to kill; C) he choose to do vinash of the baddies, and nurtures no regret. Always.

The film’s plot is in strict continuation from its predecessor. We are in Maharashtra where the chief minister Anna (Dilip Prabhavalkar), is a much-revered Gandhiwadi. But his state apparently is being held hostage by the underworld. So says home minister Janardhan Jagirdar (Vikram Gokhale). Mr Jagirdar, in fact, is ringing alarm bells and screaming that Maharashtra urgently needs Sadhu Agashe to restore order.

We don’t see any mayhem. All seems calm. In fact, the only excitement we get is when the camera pans around the table tellingly — there’s Suryakant Thorat (Ashutosh Rana) and commissioner Bhaskar Bhandare (Govind Namdev). Faces that immediately instil fear and expectation of intrigue, double-crossing. But we are back to Jagirdar, who is telling the chief minister to call Sadhu Agashe to lead “the force”.

But Sadhu is temperamentally indisposed to joining “the force”. He did his duty in Ab Tak Chhappan, is paying the price (there are various investigations into his conduct) and would like to spend his remaining years with his sweet, innocent son Aman, in Goa — fishing, cooking, playing kanche, while the son plays the piano.

But, of course, all that will change. In this genre of underworld vs cops films, something happens to trigger change. And that something happens here as well. It’s sweet, but it also makes the story so damn predictable that you could just gather your stuff and head home. I’d have done that if it were not for Sadhu Agashe.  

The film’s obvious baddies are all very dull. One is in a wheelchair, Rawale (Raj Zutshi), and the other, a random guy called Rauf, is not someone we are introduced to properly. Apparently these two guys are the ones who have been creating mayhem. We never see that. The only mayhem we witness is when Sadhu Agashe is shooting at them. The ambiguous baddies, the ones who will twist the story this way and that, are barely called for action. And as soon as they are, they fall dead. There is enough dullness already, you’d think. But no. The film presses Shalu Dixit (Gul Panag) into some sort of journalistic action. She arrives carrying a two-bit excuse from the original film to zero effect. Much time is wasted on her.

All the film’s characters — honest cops, evil cops, goons, honest politician who’ll fall victim, two-faced politicians from whom the world must be saved — are genre obligations. As are, by now, the Bharatiya icons hanging and looking bewildered on sarkari wall. These silent and solemn reminders of hona tha kya, kya ho gaya — from Sardar Patel and Gandhi to Shivaji and Ambedkar — must now be retired.

What works for the film is Nana Patekar’s Sadhu Agashe with whom we spend a lot of time, first at home, where he cooks, smiles lovingly at his son, and later in the thanas and on shooting sprees. The gharelu bits are nice but soon it becomes a drag because it just drags. The plot, built around genre cliches, is depressingly predictable, including the twists and impetus for the final, climatic action.   

Vikram Gokhale, Govind Namdev, Ashutosh Rana and Raj Zutshi are assigned to play unidimensional, hollow characters who must mouth stock dialogues. None tries to perform. So set are these actors in their bad-boy acts that it’s a yawn to watch them. Their still image is way more effective than when they are animated.

Though lacking in originality — plot, characters — director Gulab shows some flair in making a copy and extension of Ab Tak Chhappan. He’s competent. The only thing that works for the film is Nana Patekar, who is not only looking very good but is itching for action. The film showcases that, but eventually wastes him. He’s given the same sort of dialogue that he’s been getting for years — irony in drawl and then bursting into wit and wisdom ever so often. It was stunning once, now it’s flat.
He’s ready for a challenge. Give him one, please.