By: Amit KumaR Agarwal
2001, the Indian box-office witnessed a Tsunami called Gadar - Ek Prem Katha, few reviewers called it jaded and jingoistic - clearly these critics had no idea about the taste of the masses. Gadar became an iconic film in the history of Indian cinema.
22 years later Anil Sharma returns with Gadar 2, will it repeat the success of Gadar. Read on!
Gadar 2 follows the story of Tara Singh (Sunny Deol) and Sakina (Ameesha Patel) now living with their college going son, Jeetey (Utkarsh Sharma).
Sakina's father, Ashraf Ali (Amrish Puri) is branded a traitor by pakistani army led by General Hamid Iqbal (Manish Wadhwa) and hanged to death.
Hamid covertly tries to infiltrate India, and it is assumed Tara Singh is taken captive. Jeetey decides to sneak in Pakistan and take the help of Tara's childhood friend Gul Khan (Mushtaq Khan).
However, Tara was never captured by the army; ironically, Jeetey is captured by the army and Tara goes to get his son back.
In this plot there is the sub-plot of Jeetey falling in love with a pakistani girl, Muskaan (Simrat Kaur).
The main strength of Gadar was its emotional quotient and the stand-out scenes; Gadar 2 tries to repeat it, though it succeeds but only to an extent.
Anil Sharma has done a good job as a director, but while Shaktimaan Talwar's screenplay was flawless in Gadar, here the tempo loses steam in the first half. The dialogues too are not as powerful as the original Gadar.
Sunny Deol breathes life in the role of Tara Singh. His action sequences particularly will bring the house down. The way he uproots electric-poles in the climax made many curious what will he uproot in Gadar 3. Utkarsh Sharma is good as Jeetey. Simrat Kaur does a fine job as Muskaan.
On the whole, given the huge craze and legacy of Gadar, Gadar 2 will start with a solid business; it might do 300-crores as well which is quite an achievement in today's scenario but the bottom-line is, it will not match the iconic status of the original - Gadar - Ek Prem Katha.