Star Cast- Sanjay Dutt, Aditya Roy Kapur, Alia Bhatt, Jishu Sengupta, Priyanka Bose, Makrand Deshpande, John Gardener, Anil George and Gulshan Grover
Genre- Social
Rating- *1/2
Boring & Morbid!
Jyothi Venkatesh
After her mother Shakuntala Desai’s death under mysterious circumstances, the Desai Group of Industries scion Aarya (Alia Bhatt) vows to avenge the murder and bring the culprits to justice. And, in order to honor her mother’s last wish, Aarya embarks on a journey to Kailash Parbhat (???) and the bizarre story of ‘Sadak 2’ unfolds. As the film starts unfurling, you cringe and wonder what on earth prompted Mahesh Bhatt who had at one time made films like Arth and Saaransh to resort to making this sequel of his own film Sadak, which has absolutely no story in the first place.
Ironically, if the web series Aashram also is about how a Godman is all set to exploit gullible people around him, this one , which is actually the sequel to the 90’s super hit Sadak also deals with a so called dhongi sadhu called Gyaan Prakash (Makrand Deshpande). Aarya is a 20 something (Alia Bhatt) whose parents father Yogesh (Jisshu Sengupta) and maasi turned stepmother Nandini (Priyanka Bose) are under the spell of the dhongi sadhu’ but Aarya (Alia Bhatt), who is convinced that her beloved mother died owing to an elaborate plan hatched by Gyaan Prakash and Nandini, launches an online campaign called ‘India Fights Fake Gurus’ to set out to unravel the truth behind these dubious messengers of God and debunk the myth and mystery surrounding them.
In the process, Aarya falls in love with a good-looking musician with issues of his own, Vishal (Aditya Roy Kapur) and together, they embark on a pilgrimage to fulfill Aarya’s desire to visit Kailash on her 21stbirthday, aided and abetted by Ravi Kishore Verma (Sanjay Dutt), a driver in a travel agency owned by his late wife Pooja (Pooja Batt). ‘Sadak 2’ starts off with a dreary and melancholic setting, where the hopeless protagonist Ravi is making an attempt to suicide and talk to his deceased wife Pooja Verma (Pooja Bhatt) about their impending reunion in the afterlife. But the fan that he is hanging on comes crashing down, and Ravi has to live another day, taking Aarya around in his cab.
It looks like in his first outing at direction after a gap of twenty years, Mahesh falls flat as far as extracting sane performance from his cast. While Sanjay Dutt is looking like an eye sore, Alia just manages to impress with her skull as an actor. While Aditya Roy Kapoor has got nothing to do in terms of emoting and just looks like a stud, Makrand Deshpande and Priyanka Bose who are otherwise good actors tend to over act. The less said about Gulshan Grover, who plays an evil character called Dilip Haath Kaata the better as the guy has been wasted in this forgettable and dated venture, which looks like a product of the 70’s. I do not understand what on earth prompted Jisshu Sengupta, the gifted actor from Kolkata who has been making steady inroads into Hindi cinema, to take up a role as Aarya’s father in this film. While yet another good actor like Anil George who is a brilliant actor has been wasted in a role which has no identity or voice, Akshay Anand, who has rechristened himself as John Gardener, his original name, in this comeback effort of his is as bad as Mahesh Bhatt is, as a director.