Awarapan 2

Awarapan 2 Movie Review Rating:

Star Cast: Emraan Hashmi, Disha Patani, Shabana Azmi, Suvinder Vicky, Vijayant Kohli, AtulKumar, Aniruddh Rawal, Puran Gabbi

Director: Nitin Kakkar

What’s Good: Emraan Hashmi and his acting skills win this all over!

What’s Bad: The same blueprint of gangster dramas!

Loo Break: In the interval or the second half!

Watch or Not?: Yes, for Emraan Hashmi!

Language: Hindi

Available On: Theatrical release

Runtime: 2 hours 20 minutes

User Rating:

Now, let me be honest, I walked into watch Awarapan 2 without much expectations, and I walked out being almost charmed with Emraan Hashmi’s effortless portrayal of Shivam Pandit! I mean, when I walked into a jam-packed theater on a Friday morning at 9 AM, I really could not understand the madness behind this franchise! But, I would agree, Emraan Hashmi knows his audience, and his audience pays him back with such loyal admiration! I am an Emraan Hashmi fan, and I really cannot point out why, because generally gangster dramas are not my thing, but ever since I saw some of his musical action dramas, I was sold!

Directed by Nitin Kakkar and written by Bilal Siddique and Vishesh Bhatt, this sequel had one job – to prove that Emraan Hashmi in a musically dominant, morally messy, tragedy-soaked universe is still worth 140 minutes of your long weekend. And surprisingly, it serves the purpose! In fact, in this review, you will find the word surprisingly after every two lines, because I genuinely did not know that the film would shape so well!

Awarapan 2 Movie Review: Script Analysis

Nineteen years after Mohit Suri’s 2007 cult classic Awarapan introduced us to Shivam Pandit and his tragic world, we meet him again. The sequel picks up that shattered man – this time older, grayer, emotionally tougher but still carrying the weight of his past sins and lost love. Shivam is dragged into the same syndicate of child trafficking when a young girl from an orphanage is trapped. A girl whom he found at Aaliyah’s grave and named her Aaliyah! Shivam decides he will not lose Aaliyah for another time, and the story immediately lands in Bangkok!

Conflicts start, plans fail, suspicions grow as the trap gets bigger, with Shabana Azmi, Disha Patani, Suvinder Vicky, Vijayanat Kohli, and Puran Gabbi making this entire plotline interesting. Will Shivam lose Aaliyah or himself in this trap yet again? That is what makes the entire storyline of Awarapan 2.

Awarapan 2 Movie Review: Star Performance

Emraan Hashmi casts a spell as Shivam Pandit once again, and no matter how hard you try, you simply cannot break out of it! He doesn’t just play Shivam; he knows him with an aching vulnerability. He carries the entire pain and weight of the world he hates and delivers it through very few dialogues! Surprisingly, it has worked in his favor; in fact, it always does! Nobody plays a man drowning in his own guilt and rage quite like him, and this film knows it. Hashmi doesn’t try to recreate 2007’s Shivam; he plays a man who’s carried that grief for two decades and let it turn into something heavier and angrier.  

I wish Disha Patani could reinvent herself so that she is so much more than her looks! Remember MS Dhoni? Even while wearing Kurtas, you could hold everyone’s attention! I really do not know if it is the script she chooses or the writers genuinely want to present her as a good-looking frame, but she deserves so much better! The warmth and vulnerability needed to portray Zara get lost somewhere in the narrative, and I am still not sure who to blame, her acting skills or the writer!

The legendary Shabana Azmi commands the screen with sheer grace and quiet intensity, but she deserved a better screen timing and editing for sure! It just looks like a half-cooked meal when she could have had the entire supper to herself! Suvinder Vicky brings a menacing, grounded threat as the antagonist, giving the narrative a sharp edge. Purab Gabbi, as the main antagonist, holds the plot well, but there is nothing specific that makes him stand out!