Bollywood Ghayal Once Again
Cast: Sunny Deol and Soha Ali Khan
Director: Sunny Deol
Indian action movies have always been compared to the ones from Hollywood and bashed up for lack of quality. Our action is either too over-the-top or so illogical that you just can’t digest it. Sunny Deol’s sequel to Ghayal, addresses that scenario with resounding success. The action sequences in this movie belong in a Luc Besson production. Mind you, just the action alone. The dramatic scenes are hotchpotch. But when the action turns on, it grips you and it keeps on the edge of your seat.
The movie starts off on a bad note. You’re introduced to Sunny Deol’s character of Ajay Mehra years after he’s served his sentence. He rehabilitated but he suffers from mind numbing headaches that are accompanied by surreal X-men like visions you only think Professor Charles Xavier could have. But Sunny paaji has them and it all looks a bit too ridiculous. But these nightmares are supposed to set up his character who’s walking a thin line of sanity and volcanic anger. Nonetheless, he’s now identified as a rebellious media influencer and owner of a newspaper called Satyakam (a nice touch of respect to what’s possibly Dharamendra’s best film ever). His brand of justice is vigilante and underground. You can picture him as a cross between Julian Assange and Hugo Weaving’s V from V For Vendetta. So when a group of teenagers run into trouble with a wealthy industrialist / media baron named Raj Bansal, Ajay steps in to save the day. Here’s when the film picks up pace. Action and thrills take precedence while soppy sentimentality and melodrama is left out completely.
It’s not your typical dhai kilo ka haath or handpump unearthing kind of action. This is slick, jujitsu kind of action that you’d normally leave to the likes of Liam Neeson and Keanu Reeves. But here we have Sunny Deol brawling it with foreign and Indian actors / stuntmen and the effects are fantabulous. Sunny paaji’s image of hulking strength and invincibility adds a nice touch to the gritty action on display. Even the car chases and running around action set pieces are choreographed with oodles of logic and flair. This sort of action quality was reserved for A-list Hollywood action movies.
Ghayal Once Again has the right ideas but the execution is a bit of hit and miss. The script uses technology and Mumbai geography to great effect. It even gives its grey characters a backstory and proper motives. They’re not evil you know. They’re just corrupted by power. But then the film also takes too many cinematic liberties. Not to mention too many formulaic subplots and ideas that were better left in the movies of ’80s and ’90s. The estranged daughters, the errant children and the wise grandparents just end up being distractions in an otherwise slick and tough action marathon.
On the count of performances this film as you’d expect, is Sunny Deol all the way. He may be nearing 60 in real life, but on screen he looks fit and his punches are fantastic. Barring the jarred fits of exaggerated headaches, his performance as an on-the-edge character is super. While he’s not raging mad at Balvant Rai’s canine support system, he is angry and hurt by his past. Like he had emerged gloriously from a tank in Border, he does the same here from a crashed helicopter. The adrenaline rush of the performance is the same. Narendra Jha, as Raj Bansal, the chief antagonist is good too. He’s no Amrish Puri but he does make the villainy look suave and credible. Manoj Joshi as a nervous but conniving politician is funny. Soha Ali Khan does well with her benevolent doctor act too.
If you’ve seen your fill of action films over the years you’ll really be able to appreciate what Ghayal Once Again serves up in its two-hour runtime. The dramatic bits are inconsistent but even so, the film manages to impress. It’s shot nicely, it’s fast and it takes the right kind of approach to building on the legend of Sunny Deol and Ghayal.
Director: Sunny Deol
Indian action movies have always been compared to the ones from Hollywood and bashed up for lack of quality. Our action is either too over-the-top or so illogical that you just can’t digest it. Sunny Deol’s sequel to Ghayal, addresses that scenario with resounding success. The action sequences in this movie belong in a Luc Besson production. Mind you, just the action alone. The dramatic scenes are hotchpotch. But when the action turns on, it grips you and it keeps on the edge of your seat.
The movie starts off on a bad note. You’re introduced to Sunny Deol’s character of Ajay Mehra years after he’s served his sentence. He rehabilitated but he suffers from mind numbing headaches that are accompanied by surreal X-men like visions you only think Professor Charles Xavier could have. But Sunny paaji has them and it all looks a bit too ridiculous. But these nightmares are supposed to set up his character who’s walking a thin line of sanity and volcanic anger. Nonetheless, he’s now identified as a rebellious media influencer and owner of a newspaper called Satyakam (a nice touch of respect to what’s possibly Dharamendra’s best film ever). His brand of justice is vigilante and underground. You can picture him as a cross between Julian Assange and Hugo Weaving’s V from V For Vendetta. So when a group of teenagers run into trouble with a wealthy industrialist / media baron named Raj Bansal, Ajay steps in to save the day. Here’s when the film picks up pace. Action and thrills take precedence while soppy sentimentality and melodrama is left out completely.
It’s not your typical dhai kilo ka haath or handpump unearthing kind of action. This is slick, jujitsu kind of action that you’d normally leave to the likes of Liam Neeson and Keanu Reeves. But here we have Sunny Deol brawling it with foreign and Indian actors / stuntmen and the effects are fantabulous. Sunny paaji’s image of hulking strength and invincibility adds a nice touch to the gritty action on display. Even the car chases and running around action set pieces are choreographed with oodles of logic and flair. This sort of action quality was reserved for A-list Hollywood action movies.
Ghayal Once Again has the right ideas but the execution is a bit of hit and miss. The script uses technology and Mumbai geography to great effect. It even gives its grey characters a backstory and proper motives. They’re not evil you know. They’re just corrupted by power. But then the film also takes too many cinematic liberties. Not to mention too many formulaic subplots and ideas that were better left in the movies of ’80s and ’90s. The estranged daughters, the errant children and the wise grandparents just end up being distractions in an otherwise slick and tough action marathon.
On the count of performances this film as you’d expect, is Sunny Deol all the way. He may be nearing 60 in real life, but on screen he looks fit and his punches are fantastic. Barring the jarred fits of exaggerated headaches, his performance as an on-the-edge character is super. While he’s not raging mad at Balvant Rai’s canine support system, he is angry and hurt by his past. Like he had emerged gloriously from a tank in Border, he does the same here from a crashed helicopter. The adrenaline rush of the performance is the same. Narendra Jha, as Raj Bansal, the chief antagonist is good too. He’s no Amrish Puri but he does make the villainy look suave and credible. Manoj Joshi as a nervous but conniving politician is funny. Soha Ali Khan does well with her benevolent doctor act too.
If you’ve seen your fill of action films over the years you’ll really be able to appreciate what Ghayal Once Again serves up in its two-hour runtime. The dramatic bits are inconsistent but even so, the film manages to impress. It’s shot nicely, it’s fast and it takes the right kind of approach to building on the legend of Sunny Deol and Ghayal.
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