Raid 2: Ajay Devgn Is Listless In His Apolitical Tale Of Heroism
The apolitical stance of Raj Kumar Gupta's Raid 2 backfires on the commentary it tries to make; its cautious intent and framing shrink the story’s broad scope into the smallness of a single act.
Screengrab from Raid 2 trailer.
Last Updated: 02.11 PM, May 01, 2025
NOTHING SPELLS CRISIS for an industry louder than a film encouraging the reading of being better than what it is. The conclusion stems from both perception and positioning. How one looks at a film is largely coloured by what came before, and where it fits into the larger scheme of things. Currently, Hindi cinema is so riddled with adrenaline and frothing at the mouth with propaganda that Raj Kumar Gupta’s Raid 2, cautious at best and frustrating at worst, might end up as one of the bearable films of the year.
But this would be a misreading — and misleading — because Gupta’s new film is as politically inert as it comes. The toothlessness undermines the premise of Raid 2, which, much like its predecessor, follows a government employee standing up to a corrupt politician. If an anti-establishment tone is inherent to the setting, the film unfolds by refusing to acknowledge it. In the filmmaker’s books, a hero is created by the system, and heroism is defined as a compliance with the state apparatus — a blind spot that shapes the parochial narrative.
Revenue officer Amay Patnaik (Ajay Devgn) has been posted again. His constant transfers have everything to do with unwavering honesty, but this time, he has been punished. He and his team had raided a king’s palace, and when asked to be lenient, he asked for a bribe. As a result, Patnaik moves to Bhoj with his wife (Ileana D'Cruz is replaced by Vaani Kapoor) and daughter. He soon meets Dada Manohar Bhai (Riteish Deshmukh), a beloved politician and cabinet minister, and it becomes amply clear that everything was strategic.
Written by Ritesh Shah, Jaideep Yadav, Karan Vyas and Gupta, Raid 2 follows the outline of the first part (the sequel opens in 1989, seven years after Rameshwar Singh, the dishonest politician played by Saurabh Shukla, was put in jail by Patnaik) with the thrill built into one specific detail: where is the black money hidden? In this case, the revelation is also linked to the disclosure of Dada Manohar Bhai being an exploitative man.
It assumes the nature of a bombshell because he appears too good to be true. He is a selfless philanthropist, a devoted son and a people’s leader by all measures. Manohar has a foundation in his mother’s name (Supriya Pathak wasted in a linear maternal role), has helped several women with jobs at the railways, and those in his locality treat him like God. The only problem is that Patnaik senses something is amiss and starts looking for it.
Gupta designs this cat and mouse chase like a sombre Abbas-Mustan thriller where everyone is outwitting the other; one flashback spawns another, and turns out that Patnaik and Manohar keep having an upper hand over the other, till, of course, the film steps in. It goes on for too long and comprises the two men threatening each other over landline phones. The dialogues might sound different, but the subtext to Patnaik’s swag is simply this: everything is planned. At one point, when a female officer is let into the unending twists and turns of the officer’s plans, she lets out an exasperated common sentiment: “My head is spinning”.
On a fundamental level, this is lazy writing. But even on a broader view, Raid 2 displays genuine lack of confidence by unendingly introducing characters well into the second half (Amit Sial and Yashpal Sharma as a dubious revenue officer and a lawyer respectively are great fun to watch, so is Saurabh Shukla who appears fleetingly but always effective) and lending none of them a sense of interiority. Each is just a pawn to peak Patnaik’s heroism that extends well beyond his pay grade.
It does not help that Devgn as Patnaik offers one of the sluggish renditions of a man set out to right the wrongs. That he is always cushioned by the system (Rajat Kapoor plays his boss) evens out the stakes, but still the actor imbues his portrayal with an unshakeable listlessness. He lights cigarettes and gets suspended with the same deadbeat expression.
Devgn’s nonchalance permeates into the writing as the film moves from being simple to simplistic, and everything is in service of elevating him. Patnaik goes about tricking and seizing Manohar’s money like the latter were a henchman and not a wily politician. But unlike Devgn, Deshmukh is affecting in his turn and is menacing without being overwrought. It is an interesting character that has room for redemption, and the actor is potent in the depiction.
The apolitical stance of Raid 2 also backfires on the commentary it seeks to make. The film remains so preventive in its intent and framing (in one scene, Manohar calls the Prime Minister for help but the face is obscured and only a fur cap, alluding to former prime minister Shri Vishwanath Pratap Singh, is depicted) that the largeness of the scope gets restricted to the smallness of an act. What could have been a reiteration about an inherently dishonest system ends up as a witless retelling of a dishonest man. It translates as self-defeatingly safe, and none of Gupta’s swerves, like crafty casting or orchestrating a fun moment of people looking at money falling from the sky to a pulpy tune, salvages it.