Rohit Shetty’s cop universe is bland. Singham Again is the “massy” directors attempt at creating an indigenous Avengers-like Marvel universe. A place where iconic cop characters from Hindi cinema all come together to fight for justice. But in Singham Again, justice looks rather questionable.
Premise: Bajirao Singham, played by Ajay Devgn, is roped into the plans of Zubair Hafiz, the grandson of Omar Hafiz, a Pakistani terrorist. Singham’s wife, Avni played by Kareena Kapoor, is kidnapped by Zubair’s forces and is taken to Sri Lanka. Here Singham’s partners in crime, Shakti Shetty (Deepika Padukone), Satya (Tiger Shroff), Simmba (Ranvir Singh), Sooryavanshi (Akshay Kumar) and Daya (Dayanand Shetty), come together to rescue Avni in true action movie fashion.
The hook of Shetty’s box-office-blockbuster is the parallel he draws to the story of the Ramayan in his film. Sita’s abduction in the myth is equated to Kareena’s kidnapping, Singham takes the role of Ram, his trusty right-hand man Lakshman is Satya (Tiger Shroff), for comic relief and additional support we have Simba as Hanuman, Daya as Jatayu and Shakti Shetty as Sugriv.
On paper, there seems to be no reason why these parallels would not work. Using mythology to enhance a story gives a film a sense of grandeur and rootedness. But Shetty makes an irresponsible decision. He uses the epic as a gimmick. By writing loose dialogue and careless scenes, the parallels he wants to draw between the epic and his cop story become predictable and cold. One could pass off these creative decisions as moments of misjudgement, however Shetty time and again proves that he is not writing dialogue for the film but is expressing his own personal ideology on current affairs.
Take for instance one of the first scenes in the film. Devgn’s character, Singham, is riding through the mountains of Kashmir when he meets his old nemesis Omar Hafiz played by Jackie Shroff. The two get into a scuffle resulting in Hafiz’s arrest. When Devgn turns around he sees a crowd of Kashmiri youth walking towards him. He seems unsure as to how these young boys would react to Hafiz’s arrest. From among the crowd a boy steps foward and says ‘stone pelting is a thing of the past. This is now naya Bharat, naya Kashmir.’ Shetty is no longer talking from within the cop universe, he is talking as a director who is aware that his films are feeding the populist agenda. That is dangerous.
Apart from my personal feelings about his ideological choices in the film, the making of it too is disappointing. As many critics have noted, this looks to be one of his laziest films yet. What action films are known for; larger than life heroic entries of the main characters; Singham Again is unable to pull off. The actors’ entries are inspire no awe, no hooting and no cheers. Shetty’s coveted action sequences fall absolutely flat with choppy editing and quite frankly, not-so-cool moves. The two scenes I did enjoy were both picturised at Satya’s or Tiger Shroff’s Kalari institute in the forest. In the scenes, Shroff was dynamic and made you want to cheer him on.
The acting was, *sigh*, tiring to watch until Ranvir Singh as Simba entered the screen. His comic timing was truly comic relief. He lit up the screen with his exaggerated Marathi accent and loud facial expressions; the kind of ham acting Rohit Shetty’s films have perfected. Ajay Devgn in the leading role was…a bore. Arjun Kapoor as Zubair Hafiz was dragged down by his full-faced beard and unclear attempts at Urdu and Akshay Kumar, yeah, there was more of his helicopter in the film than him.
Deepika Padukone as Shakti Shetty does make you want to let out some hesitant hoots (a woman in uniform unleashes a different kind of crazy) but the sound drowns out quickly when you see the representation of South India on screen. Padukone’s character works at a police station in Madurai, Tamil Nadu. But the background of her entry is filled with Mohiniyattam dancers from Kerala, Chau dancers from either Purulia or Mayurbhanj, and Pilli Nalike dancers from Karnataka. Is this poetic license or just gross misrepresentation?
Ultimately this film raises a few important questions. Should “massy,” commercial cinema not be held accountable for its creative decisions? Should we not have higher standards for them? Or should we let them off easily because they are massy?
If after reading this review your question is; why did you even go and watch the film? Well, it’s because the idea of watching a multi-starrer with some of the biggest actors in Bollywood seems so exciting. The proposal of an Indian Avengers universe is really cool. It is a valiant thought. It makes young audiences want to fall in love with a superhero while munching on their over-priced theatre popcorn. It could push more audiences back into theatres. It fulfils something. But in the hands of Rohit Shetty? I think I would rather not.