Son of Sardaar 2: Brain-Melting Is Now A Movie Genre

IT IS ONLY JULY but I doubt there will be another Hindi film as weird as Son of Sardaar 2. To be fair, weird is what most mainstream comedies bet on, bringing in everything from snoring crocodiles to hostile monkeys for drawing laughs. The intent is to be unhinged because the idea is that nothing is out of bounds. Vijay Kumar Arora’s Son of Sardaar 2 subscribes to this school of thought but also goes several steps further, believing that nothing is sacred.

I am not sure if this is a bad thing. It probably is not. At a time when everyone is cagey and everything is considered sacrosanct, Arora’s film goes about making jokes about everything and everyone. It is both strange and startling, slapstick and absurdist. It is too much and too little, rendering Son of Sardaar 2 a film without the awareness of being one.

Again, I am not sure if it is a bad thing. Maybe it is, maybe it is not. If my tone is non-committal it is because my brain is broken. It is all too baffling: Deepak Dobriyal portraying a transgender woman with the conviction deserving of a standalone film; Sharad Saxena going about finding women half his age to dance with; Sanjay Mishra randomly holding a VFX snake and asking it to get well soon; a clueless white woman being referred to by her Indian step children as “English mummy”; Ajay Devgn headlining what is presumably more progressive that anything he has starred in lately. Did anyone know what was happening? My guess is a hard no. This is the good news. The bad news is, neither do we.

In Son of Sardaar 2, Arora (the famed Punjabi filmmaker and a cinematographer in a host of Hindi films) takes the baton from Ashwni Dhir and crafts an absolute bonkers of a film. It is nuttier than the Housefulls ( complimentary) and more outlandish than the Golmaal(s) (not). Words will not do justice but I will try.

Devgn plays Jassi, a self-righteous Sikh man awaiting his UK visa to reunite with his wife (Neeru Bajwa) and kids. When he finally gets to go to Scotland, she declares she wants a divorce. The decision catches him off-guard, and on the advice of a relative, Jassi decides to meet a divorce lawyer. In a chance encounter, however, he ends up sitting across Rabia (Mrunal Thakur), a Pakistani dancer, who too has been freshly abandoned by her husband (Chunky Panday; don't ask). Living with Danish’s daughter Saba (Roshni Walia), and troupe members Mehwish (Kubbra Sait getting all four lines) and Gul (Dobriyal), Rabia lets Jassi stay with them as a tenant.

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Although seemingly harmless, complications arise when Saba’s boyfriend Goggi (Sahil Mehta), an immigrant Sikh, wants to meet her parents to talk about their marriage. Two immediate problems show up: Goggi’s affluent father, Raja (Ravi Kishan) is a rabid nationalist who will not agree to a Pakistani daughter-in-law, and a staunch patriarch as well, demanding the presence of Saba’s father for the wedding talks to materialise. Jassi is soon convinced to play-act as her father while the rest play-act as Indians, opening the floor to confusion and more rewardingly, making light of nationalism without ridicule.

One of the more riotous bits in the film is Jassi, after falsely introducing himself as a colonel, recounting his days at the border by retelling dialogues from JP Dutta’s Border (1997). He becomes Sunny Deol at some point, and Suniel Shetty a little later. Although Raja’s brothers (Vindu Dara Singh and the late Mukul Dev) are suspicious, he exclaims that in all possibility the film was inspired by Jassi’s life. Later when an enthused Raja asks everyone to salute the greatness of India and Gul forgets to join in, the latter casually offers an excuse: “Oops, I was not ready!”. It is funnier when one sees it.

This remains a common sentiment across Son of Sardaar 2, a film that stubbornly refuses to make sense. Few moments land but all try to, which makes the exercise of watching it exhausting.

I understand wanting a uniformly funny film is a tall ask, as much as expecting Devgn to dance (man does everything except that). But would it not be nice to finally have a comedy that doesn’t make you second guess while laughing at it (“Am I losing my mind?”), and be less embarrassed about liking it (“I have lost my mind!”)?

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(Disclaimer: The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of OTTplay. The author is solely responsible for any claims arising out of the content of this column.)