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.