‘Indian 2’ morally upright review: Shankar, Kamal film is excruciating

Shankar’s Indian (1996) was about a freedom fighter who becomes a vigilante to fight corruption. Senapathy’s (Kamal Haasan) age in the film is over 70, so in Indian 2, the sequel to the blockbuster, he is about a hundred. And he’s still fighting corruption, in exactly the same way—with his ‘handgun’ (Varma kalai) and speeches. The only difference is that Senapthy now travels across the country killing people and isn’t restricted to Tamil Nadu. In close to 30 years, that’s all that has changed about him. Thatha is a medical miracle.

This review is supposed to be written in English but some phrases cannot be translated adequately. This maavu has been arachufied so much that it has pulichufied, and is well past its expiry date. In Indian, the youth is in a hurry to get to the top through hook or crook. The freedom struggle is of no relevance to them. That becomes the central conflict of the film as Senapathy is forced to confront the “weed” in his own home – his son Chandru (Kamal Haasan), a corrupt brake inspector. 

In Indian 2, there is a flip. A bunch of young YouTubers called ‘Barking Dogs’ function as the voice of the Common Man, questioning the injustice around them. Eventually, they are led closer home, to examine the people who have brought them up. Everyone on this team, including characters played by Siddharth and Priya Bhavani Shankar, is painted in broad strokes. Earnest, enthusiastic, politically naive youth who are likely to be called “half boils” in the unforgiving language of Tamil social media. Overwhelmed by the corruption around them, they trend a ‘ComeBackIndian’ hashtag worldwide. That’s all it takes to bring Senapathy back to India from Taipei.

Why didn’t he come sooner? What happened to his wife? How is he able to pull all these stunts at his age? How does he still have so much hair? There are no answers. Maybe we will find out in Part 3, which seems to be the real film, and this, the rough notebook version. 

What we get in Part 2 is endless scenes with eat-the-rich sentiments. Familiar faces like Vijay Mallya, Ambani, Adani, ‘Legend’ Saravanan are caricatured and lampooned. These sequences are over-the-top and bizarre, but they’re not entertaining because we’ve seen all this in earlier Shankar films and Shankar-template films made by others– a businessman who lets a bejewelled turtle crawl up a woman’s navel, a businessman who shits in a toilet made of gold, a businessman with tonnes of jewellery on him, a businessman who wants to explore Mars. Rich people are beyond redemption, but the middle class is also bad because they’re corrupt for the sake of their children. Even a fisherwoman is corrupt because she cheats her customers. Everyone in this universe is corrupt, save Senapathy and a few naive youths. 

This makes the film insufferably righteous and moralistic. There is no nuance whatsoever, and Shankar isn’t interested in delving into people’s social locations or the dilemmas before them. In Indian, Senapathy refuses to bribe a government hospital doctor though his daughter is lying before him with third-degree burns. His wife, also a freedom fighter, tries to give the doctor her jewellery to persuade him. The first film is the clash between a man who holds his principles above everything else and the rest of the world that sees compromise as the only way out. The sequel, however, does not have a well-defined conflict. It is a three-hour lead-up to Part 3 and you feel cheated because really, all of this could have been an email instead of a full-blown office conference!

Shankar’s pulichamaavu also includes elements like his usual queerphobia, potshots at ‘freebie’ culture, lavish song sequences with scantily clad women, and innovative punishments. His vigilante heroes don’t just kill, they refer to ancient texts to come up with unique ways to do it. But Indian 2 does not have a villain, so it’s just thatha using his fingers every three seconds to get rid of people and giving us elaborate footnotes on how he did it– Varma kalai and CGI on how the body has been affected, with Anirudh’s repetitive score that grates on your nerves by the time the film limps to an end. The dubbing is off-sync in several places, adding to the film’s woes.

Bobby Simha plays Pramod, a CBI officer, and Krishnasamy’s (Nedumudi Venu, the CBI officer from Part 1) son. He inherits the same role that Nedumudi Venu had in Part 1 – that is, appear to be clever but fail all the same. Rakul Preet is a wildly gesticulating girlfriend to Siddharth’s Chitra Aravindan. Samuthirakani gets the only slightly-interesting role and he does what’s expected of him. SJ Suryah as Sarguna Pandian is likely to be the main villain in Part 3. In this film, you just see him dressed like Ranga Annan from Aavesham (2024) and learning Varma kalai. It’s like walking into a restaurant expecting a buffet and being told the real meal is tomorrow, and you just get to see the menu today. 

Kamal Haasan is hampered by the cakey makeup though his powerful eyes manage to get past that obstacle. In Indian, we had three Kamals – Chandru, old Senapathy, and young Senapathy. There was an arc to the characters. In Indian 2, it’s old Senapathy all the way and he repeats the same things over and over again, rather like the neighbourhood thatha who tells the same story to unsuspecting passersby. Since there is no explanation for how he’s managed to stay alive, let alone do all these gravity-defying action set pieces (there’s one with a unicycle that goes on forever), the film looks unconvincing and borders on the ridiculous. 

Since Rajamouli’s Baahubali films, directors have taken a fancy to making two-part films. But an entire film can’t be a mere lead-up to the next film. That’s taking the audience for a ride. Indian 2 is the sequel nobody asked for. This is as honest a review as you will get, Mr Senapathy. 

Sowmya Rajendran writes on gender, culture, and cinema. She has written over 25 books, including a nonfiction book on gender for adolescents. She was awarded the Sahitya Akademi’s Bal Sahitya Puraskar for her novel Mayil Will Not Be Quiet, in 2015.

Disclaimer: This review was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the film. Neither TNM nor its reviewers have any business relationship with the film’s producers or any other members of its cast and crew.