Nagpur Today.
Singham is one of the movies where entertainment with exciting writing and energetic Direction produces an enjoyable mass entertainment. It did play to the gallery but it had a sure shot graph of excitement which emotionally connected the audience to the character. Rohit Shetty and Team (as it is titled at the end of Rohit’s every movie), tries to bring back the Singham Magic for the lovers of the “Singham” Brand. With Golmal series success, Rohit has established himself as kind of a Sequel Master. So we can rely on him to get back the whistles and applause in theatre. Or….. Can we?
In Singham Returns, Bajirao Singham (Ajay Devgan) gets a bigger playground in his career and is working as Commissioner of Police in Mumbai. This time he gets intrigued in the case of black money trafficking as one of his honest constable is murdered in relation to it. As the constable is blamed for corruption, Singham makes it his aim to rip off the operators behind this black money trafficking and its source. In this case he has to confront with Swamiji (Amole Gupte) and a coalition politician (Zakir Hussain) whose black money is being inducted the Baba’s trust and then kept in a factory at a village near Singham’s village.
All through this, Singham’s on-off courtship with Avni (Kareena Kapoor) who is also from his village is in progress and they both come to their village to get respite from the tense proceedings in Mumbai after Singham fails to protect life of a good political leader and his Guruji (Anupam Kher). While pretending to be on resignation and busy in courtship with Avni, Singham, finds out the factory and its operator. Then he takes him to Mumbai. But does he get success in getting all secrets of those crooks revealed? Or he has to face other pressures? What he does and how he succeeds in bringing justice is the story of Singham Returns.
Story of Singham Returns is penned by Rohit Shetty himself and Yunus Sajawal has written the screenplay. Though the screenplay has its moments and whistle-worthy moments, it lacks the graph which Singham had. The plot is wafer-thin and and oft repeated. Suspension of disbelief is taken for granted and the villains play kiddish games which are laughable (in the negative sense of the word). The love story track of Kareena Kapoor and her character’s overall involvement in the screenplay is overstretched and looks out of place. The makers do not feel responsibility to tell us what happened with Ajay’s earlier love interest. It seems the writers believe that in relationships “Past must be forgotten”.
Dialogue writers Farhad-Sajid do provide chance for the audience to whistle and applaud. Though most of them are repeats, the audience wants to hear them and enjoys them. Overall good work in that department.
In Direction, Rohit Shetty is as usual in his elements with lots of cars being broken and blast. He excels where he gets good written material and strong action scenes. Though I feel, he should have been more involved in the writing level and insisted a better plot with incremental excitements. The movie has many dull portions which breaks the flow. Generally, Rohit’s actor must be having instructions to overact but this time things are even more louder. That area also needs to be taken care in future.
In performance, Ajay does his job as good as he always does. He looks, walks, talks and feels like Bajirao Singham. Kareena Kapoor gets a weakly written character and feels ineffective and sometimes over the top. Competing with her in over-the-top department is Amole Gupte who I feel has actually lost a good chance to get himself in the category of great villains. Zakir Hussain just plays as a second fiddle and is wasted. Anupam Kher excels in the kid of role he has and does justice to it. Daya gets not many dialogues but gets to break the door at the call of “Daya, Darwaza Tod Do” and gets huge audience applause for that. All other actors does similar kind of acting and no one gets to impress the audience.
On the production side, Production Design by Narendra Rahurikar is good but many locations and sets of Rohit’s movie feel same. The streets of Goa and nearby coastal area, Ramoji City lanes and the village with River Ghat all seems familiar with new actors and story. Action Design by Rohit Shetty is top notch. Cinematography by Dudley is good with prominent use of back lighting and helicopter shots. He has shown Mumbai in all its glory.
Music in the film is weak. Though people prefer to wait for the Yo Yo Honey Singh song, “Ata Majhi Satakali” in end titles than to go out of theatre. Background score by Amar Mohile is good. Editing by Steven H. Bernard is sharp and beautiful.
To sum it up, we can say that, not only in weak plot, villains and lacklustre love story, but Singham Returns also lacks the camaraderie of Singham with his staff, the comic foul fights of side characters, etc. The major problem of the movie is it is flat and does not elevate in excitement as the first movie did. Still it packs many moments which can make it a paisa-wasool entertainer for the fans of Rohit, Ajay and Singham.
