POPCORN REVIEWSS

Written by Nelson Dilipkumar, Jailer 2 carries the trademark dark humour of the auteur that is now synonymous with his filmography – a way that could also be termed as genre-bending in many ways. Make no mistake – this is the film and world defined by the protagonist, almost carrying a cloud of snipers along with him, only to be sprayed upon at the most sudden moment. But this is what implied innovation is; creating a bout of unpredictability in the most predictable star-driven template ever. So in a scene when a group of goons are randomly shot in the leg, with the protagonist looking on; or a provocative skirmish of the antagonists ending up with metal wounds in their heads, against a steady and calm demeanor of the protagonist – you know that the right strings are being strum for the potential crowd to go wild! In moments like these, less is more – unlike most star vehicles that are weighed down by their own heavy-weights (pun-intended).

It is also interesting on how the writing weaves bits of humour by aura-farming the simpleton image of the protagonist. In multiple occasions, you notice a character referring to the protagonist as a ‘driver’ – someone who wouldn’t usually take centerstage in a face-off between two gangsters. This unassuming thread of keeping the protagonist focused on the side, while sharing a secret of the entire drama being orchestrated by him – was invariably a win in my book, particularly given the ability of the writing to not take itself too seriously. The nonchalant persona of the protagonist was in direct conjuction to the plot that invariably reflected on its self-indulgent and self-aware humour.

This is also true for some of the quirky characters in the mix. For instance, a small time gangster Moorthy (Namo Narayana) who runs a fruit shop of its own – but thinks he is The Godfather of his land, invariably resulting in several bouts of humour landing seamlessly. Or even a hilarious sidekick in the form of Vimal (Yogi Babu) who miraculously and unceremoniously finds himself in a pickle due to the protagonist. Their face-off with an unassuming character like Dileep will go down as one of the funniest sequences of the film, even as the writing keeps the ‘threatening’ persona of the protagonist in check – the one highlighted in a particular sequence involving a violent ‘gunfire’ decimation. Or even the phenomenal interval block that is reminscent of the one from the first part.

Most of the proceedings unfold like reels that don’t have a coherence tagged to them, allowing the algorithm to build the pipeline of the events to follow. This is true for that one isolated sequence after the halfway mark too, wherein an important character is suddenly killed off against the run of play – in the most simplistic and unassuming way possible, whilst opening the floodgates for bigger villains to enter the arena. The writing is quick to define this step in a bid to create a mirroring world for the viewers, wherein the introduction of the new family of villains – namely Bodhi (SJ Suryah), Chakri (Mithun Chakraborty), Kantha (Vidya Balan), Ved (Jatin Sarna), and Sharva (Hakim Shahjahan), are pitted against the protagonist and his family. The parallel remains that of how the members of each family are close-knit while having opposing ideologies that pit them against each other.

I couldn’t help but think that the characterization takes a backseat here while bartering it with a star-studded massy vehicle. The new villains definitely add scale to the proceedings but aren’t always threatening, even though the writing does just enough to avoid a landslide. There are entertaining moments in spurts amd jerks – be it the wildly entertaining kidnapping of a particular character by the protagonist, in response to a friend’s family being kidnapped previously. Or even a flirtatious face-off between the protagonist and another character. But these moments become immensely repetitive, almost signalling a glitch in the very algorithm that the set of reels were catered to.

The events play out in a pretty safe manner, without taking any wild slogs with respect to the writing. It is similar to a Tom-and-Jerry kind of a chase, with each stakeholder trying to gain an upper-hand from the other. The issue remained a contrived timeline of having to develop and shepherd the identities of the antagonists, something that felt largely challenging, particularly given the integration of cameos too. As a result, the proceedings are watchable with a hugely rushed and flawed final act that didn’t entirely land for me. The beats of exploring an emotional core in one sequence, followed by the introduction of a starry cameo in the next one, and later an amalgamation of both these tones may have been fascinating on paper – but it felt pretty rushed for my liking on celluloid. And the simplicity with which the villains were nullified followed by a sequel-bait meant that the screenplay was in a rush to conclude too. But still, it did have its moments – particularly in the fiest hour that was supremely entertaining.