2.5/5
Activist Dadasaheb Balram Azad (John Abraham) is looked upon like a messiah by his villagers near Varanasi. He not only has the largest heart, he has the largest muscles as well. He’s not averse to beating up people to get his point across. He’s killed by his political rivals and his wife goes into a deep coma. His twin sons, Satya Balram Azad (John Abraham) and Jay Balram Azad (John Abraham) grow up to be a politician and a cop respectively. They join hands to become extra-judicial vigilantes to kill the corrupt and make UP a crime-free state.
Every melodramatic film trope has been sprinkled liberally on the film by director and writer Milap Milan Zaveri. Hindu-Muslim unity — there’s a scene where Jay catches a Quran which was thrown in the air and then thrashes the culprit. The famous blood-transfusion scene from Amar Akbar Anthony — Dadsaheb battles a hundred goons while giving blood to his wife. The karwa chauth song, where the festival is shown being celebrated en masse by the entire population, the wedding sangeet song, the devar-bhabhi ched chad, the twins covering for each other, even the famous Mother India sequence — instead of Nargis and her sons, Dadasaheb alone tills the soil and has so much strength that he can use the yoke to make a large fissure. In short, everything that can make you emotional has been thrown in the mix.
The brothers are shown targeting everyone from corrupt politicians, careless doctors, callous policemen, to beggar mafia and rapists. The common man’s fantasy of delivering rough justice to the carpetbaggers and criminals of the world has been played on a loop. To make things look relevant, issues such as the lack of oxygen in hospitals, the humiliation faced by the rape victims, the plight of child beggars, the corrupt builder-politican nexus, the problems of debt-ridden farmers get talked about in the film. Each such problem can be solved by killing the most corrupt in the system. This is the final solution propagated by the film.
There’s no subtlety involved in the film. Each character screams his or her lines. And no one talks normally. Every line is a punch dialogue. The background score too is ultra loud and suspenseful. The violence — and there’s lots of it in the film — is quite graphic.
Maybe the masses need some kind of escapist fantasy — we don’t know. Nothing has been going right for the common man in any case. Maybe they need a gory revenge fantasy to get their minds off COVID-19, unemployment, inflation…the works. The best thing about the film is that it espouses communal harmony — in an extremely loud, shouting from the rooftops kind of way. And it tells you that if you unite, then you can take care of corrupt politicians yourself.
It’s John Abraham’s first ever triple role and he’s risen admiringly to the occasion. He never flinches from delivering the most over-the-top lines in all three of his avatars. It helps that all three are chiselled as help and have the same height and body structure, not to mention voice. We think he looked the best in his farmer avatar. The rustic clothes and handlebar moustache suited him. Full marks to him for his sincerity towards such a topsy-turvy script. Divya Khosla Kumar makes her comeback to Hindi cinema with this film. She gets her moment when she commands her husband and brother-in-law to wreak havoc against the rapists. She has a good screen presence and well, let’s see what she chooses next…
Trailer : Satyamev Jayate 2
Hiren Kotwani, November 25, 2021, 1:37 AM IST
3.0/5
STORY: Satya Azad (John Abraham), an upright Home Minister wants to cleanse the country of corruption with his Anti-Corruption Bill. However, it fails to get enough ‘Ayes’, not only from his allies, but also from his wife Vidya (Divya Khosla Kumar) a member of the Opposition, who votes ‘Nay’ in the Vidhan Sabha. When a couple of gruesome killings take place in the city, ACP Jay Azad (John Abraham again) is brought in to nab the murderer, never mind his motive. So, if you thought this story revolves around brother against brother, no, there is more to it.
REVIEW: The only way Satyameva Jayate 2 (SMJ2) takes ahead from its prequel Satyameva Jayate (SMJ) is by tackling corruption and greed for power. At the onset, writer-director Milap Zaveri and the film’s team have maintained that it’s a massy fare, like the popular cinema of the 1980s. When you see John Abraham turn into a vigilante to punish those who caused the death of innocent citizens, you’re not as surprised as you are when you realise it’s Satya who’s handing out the death penalty, and Jay is being roped in to bring the vigilante to justice.
Milap makes no effort to hide that he’s paying a tribute to the 80s movies, and his pride in that is abundantly evident in the screenplay and dialogues — be it Satya calling the ACP to tell him that he won’t stop punishing the guilty, Jay’s introductory sequence or even Dadasaheb Azad (John Abraham yet again, as their farmer father) single-handedly ploughing a poor farmer’s field, or the brothers wearing saffron and green, fighting each other in the pre-climax. All this and more only adds more masala to the meat of the story.
Besides the menace of corruption, Milap addresses farmers’ suicides, violence against women (Nirbhaya in Delhi, Veterinarian in Telangana), Lokpal Bill, the importance of communal harmony and religious tolerance in good measure as well. The writer-director also makes a telling comment on today’s media and social media that focuses more on capturing news and sensationalising on the cameras and smartphones, even as someone is bleeding to death on the streets in broad daylight.
John Abraham looks comfortable in this old-school, and far too often tried and tested commercial potboiler fare. Be it as the twin brothers or as the father, he plays his triple role with equal ease. If he shows a little restraint as Satya, he doesn’t shy away from playing to the gallery as Jay or as Dadasaheb, a simple farmer leading the fight for the Lokpal Bill to the assembly.
Divya Khosla Kumar is pleasant and has a fairly prominent part to play in this otherwise male-dominated movie. As the righteous Vidya, she minces no words when she disagrees and strongly opposes her husband Satya and her Minister father (Harsh Chhaya) on different issues. Gautami Kapoor lends due support as Dadasaheb’s wife and Satya’s and Jay’s mother. Harsh Chhaya, Annup Sonii, Zakir Hussain, Dayashankar Pandey and Saahil Vaid perform their parts well.
The soundtrack is easy on the ears, be it the wedding song Tenu Lehanga or the Karwa-Chauth track Meri Zindagi Hai Tu, while Nora Fatehi sizzles in the Kusu Kusu number.
The raw hardcore action is the highlight of the film and John doesn’t disappoint — whether he has to lift a motorcycle with a rider and fling it, or rip out the engine of an SUV, or even rip a few metres of earth by smashing his plough in a field. For action lovers, there are several seeti-maar moments to lap up. While we understand the film is a homage of sorts to the over-the-top cinema of the 1980s that we once relished, some scenes like three John Abrahams stopping the helicopter from taking off with their bare hands, could be a blow too hard even for the OTT sensibilities.
If you enjoy the massy masala fare of the bygone era and are willing to take on thrice as much of John Abraham in one frame, you can go indulge in this one.
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