Force 2 Hindi Movie Review

Every second film is now a franchisee and the audience is given one peep backwards and from nostalgia the older film gets a pat on the back. This retro compliment is often a comparative statement and invariably you find the earlier outing the better of the two. It could be Rock On, Tum Bin or Force. This indicates that we are not at our creative best and seem caught in a web of mediocrity.
This time round, the film has every going in its favour. Fine backdrop – Budapest and Hungary, a taut script, lots of high octave action, star value, adrenaline aplenty and yet the final product is a no winner. The film that could have been a fine espionage tale peters into needless jingoism and the finale is so lost in the din and dust of bashing up and beating to pulp you wonder if this is a poor alternative to a good script.
After RAW agents are done away with on the streets of Shanghai and Beijing, the government starts wondering what is happening. Enter ACP Yashvardhan (John Abraham) who is called from the police force to save RAW agents!! If this is not getting your basics mixed up, go along and watch the script unfurl before you. He reports to Kamaljit Kaur – KK (Sonakshi Sinha). It does not take long for them to zero on the guy who is the cause for this cross border killing. When you put the pieces together at the end of it all, you see huge contradictions and that eats into the veracity of a good espionage saga. The two land in picturesque Budapets and survive a bomb blast. It does not take our latest Marple and Sherlock Homes to zero on the villain – Shiv Sharma (Tahir Raj Bhasin). Predictably the villain is invariably one step ahead of the Intelligence and so a script that spends about 120 odd minutes to tell the Tom and Jerry fight with political overtones. Fortunately, this time over it is not the predictable enemy on the Western front.
The film holds your attention for most of the time primarily because of the top octave action scenes. Where it goes wrong is its refusal to keep the villain as one and gets a political denominator. It gets in the political angle with the insider (Sidharth Basu). Fortunately, it keeps the romance away except for a few moments when Genelia returns to the story. When things go wrong, they go completely wary and the script gets derailed.
While action is king, story goes begging. For a good part, the film gives just what you expect. It fails when it does not keep you engaged after a point and at this stage we also have a needless post script that injects needless chest beating jingoism and messages of willing and readiness to go to war. Hum gharon mein gus ke maartein hain!!
Yet again heroics is about defying law in the name of popularity and the over sell of instant justice is at its peak. Invariably this comes with the pack of well packaged patriotic fervour. The disrespect for law and now even international protocol opens up a new chapter in defiance of law and the worship of muscle.
The script gives its time exclusively to the two spies: John (eternally with a single expression and no pretentions of being a good actor) and Sonakshi who does all that the mainstream heroine is expected to do but falls well short of what Katrina did in Ek Tha Tiger, as does the film. Where Kabir succeeds and Abhinay Deo fails is that the espionage story tries hard to beat up patriotic fervour. Force 2 is better referred to forced to.

Rating: 2.5
+ Action
– Only action
L. Ravichander.