Sadak 2 review: This trip will put you to sleep

Madhukar Bhat, Aug 29, 2020, 5:46 PM IST

Sadak 2 is a movie starring Sanjay Dutt, Alia Bhatt and Aditya Roy Kapoor in the lead roles. The movie had an OTT release on Disney+ Hotstar on August 28.

Directed by Mahesh Bhatt this movie is a sequel of the 1990 movie Sadak starring Sanjay Dutt and Pooja Bhatt and produced under Bhatt’s banner Vishesh Films.

This movie is about a depressed man, Ravi Verma (Sanjay Dutt), who tries to attempt suicide after the demise of his wife (Pooja Bhatt) in order to join his wife in the heavens. Ravi encounters a young woman, Aarya Desai (Aalia Bhatt) who wants to expose a fake godman, Gyaan Prakash (Makarand Deshpande).

Aarya tells Ravi that his wife, Pooja had booked tickets for a trip and asks Ravi to take her there. Even though Ravi refuses to take her there, he agrees to drive her to the destination because it was his wife’s last booking. Aarya’s boyfriend Vishal (Aditya Roy Kapur) joins the journey and as the movie progress, we watch how they bust the fake godman.

Even though this movie is a sequel of Sadak, and continues with the character of Ravi, apart from the flashes of the past, the movie doesn’t connect us to the first installation.

This movie is written by Mahesh Bhatt and Sumitra Sengupta and the dialogues remind the audience of Bollywood movies of the ’90s. Even though this is a revenge drama, the dialogues are dull, the scenes are artless and the narration is not so exciting.

The way the characters treat people going through mental illness in the movie made us rethink the logic behind them. All the three protagonists are going through psychological problems, Ravi is depressed, Aarya is mentally unwell and Vishal is a drug addict and in one scene, he even bangs his head over a glass table and breaks it. There are many dialogues in the movie related to mental illness that has absolutely no logic.

When it comes to performances, Sanjay Dutt is brilliant as Ravi who lives every day in the pain of losing his partner. Alia Bhatt does justice to her character, however in some scenes she delivers motivational lines and in other, it is just shouts and screams. Despite being one of the lead characters of the film, Aaditya Roy Kapoor is a spectator in the film who interacts with other characters.

The antagonists Jisshu Sengupta as Yogesh Desai as Aarya’s father is brilliant but his ideas of sidelining his family and his own daughter over money and power are questionable. Another anthologist, Gyaan Prakash (Makarand Deshpande) resembles the anthologist of Sadak, however, this portrayal is an add on to the drag the plot.

The three leads share most screen presence and most part of the film movie is shot either in car/road or indoors. Other than the visuals of roads, landscapes of sceneries, the film doesn’t feature any other streets, city or people.  Even though the movie was shot last year, the visuals and making, made us wonder whether it was shot in this Covid-19 lockdown with empty roads and few characters.

With outdated and predictable narration the movie is too dull. Watch it if you have trouble sleeping.