by: Amit Kumar Agarwal
Ek Villain was a blockbuster in 2014 and put Siddharth Malhotra and Shraddha Kapoor in the top-league of A-listers! Eight years later the makers return with Ek Villain Returns - but the return is terribly lame. You can not anyways walk your film with feeble crutches, the script.
Just like in Ek Villain, girls are murdered under mysterious circumstances. The film opens with an attack on famous singer, Aarvi (Tara Sutaria) and her friends. The prime suspect is her boyfriend, Gautam (Arjun Kapoor) spoilt-brat of industrialist, Mehra. A parallel story is that of Bhairav (John Abraham) and his love for Rasika (Disha Patani). The two stories entwine and thus forms the plot.
While on paper, the story and the plot is very interesting; only a very imaginative screenplay could have infused life into it. Here most of the aspects are audience's guess!
Spoilers ahead
The screenplay is that of convenience, with logic brushed aside. John kills all his victims, why does he keep Tara alive?
Major problem for Ek Villain Returns is, Ek Villain had a clear cut hero, Guru and audience were with him in his quest to avenge his wife's murder. Here, Gautam is the hero, but since he is presented ambiguously, audiences don't invest in him; rather the audience sympathy is with the villain Bhairav, because they feel, he has been wronged.
Again, the writers could've offset the misogyny in the plot, by showing the murdered girls including Rasika as opportunists, instead the audiences feel that girls are being wronged including Rasika; this results in audiences not fully rooting for Bhiarav. As such after the end of two-hours audiences least care whether Gautam wins or Bhairav wins - quite unlike Ek Villain, where audiences were with Guru in his quest to find and kill Rakesh.
John Abraham fits the role to T. Disha Patani looks gorgeous. Tara Sutaria and Arjun Kapoor are just about OK. JD Chakravarthy is wasted in the role of ACP.
Mohit Suri has had a mixed filmography. Some of his films are excellent, others below-average, few others bad. Ek Villain Returns is a below-average movie. It's business will be nowhere near Ek Villain.
In the end, the tepid-response to the hook in the end, Riteish Deshmukh taking away an unconscious John Abraham sums up the mood of the audience after the show.