Review: VISHWAROOP 2

VANITY PROJECT #Fail

1.5 stars

Mini Review:

Wisam Ahmad Kashmiri is an Indian spy who has infiltrated deep into Al Qaeda, and has helped not just finding Osama Bin Laden, but has helped rescue American soldiers, diffused a nuclear bomb in New York. If you buy this, then you’ll see him in a fistfight underwater, and hand to hand fights all over the world, diffusing more bombs and rescuing the heroine. Alas, the pace is so slow, you may fall asleep…

Main Review:

Not too long ago we watched a 56 year old Tom Cruise outrun

everything, jump into a helicopter and climb cliffs in Mission

Impossible. So you don’t think how ancient Kamal Haasan looks

when he acts out his James Bond, rescuer of the world fantasy

as Wisam Kashmiri. Or how unfortunate it is when a seasoned

actor of his calibre has to include, ‘Perhaps I am a good actor’

as a dialog in the film.

And he was superb. Once upon a time. His ‘Thakita Thadhimi’,

the drunk dance on the well in Salangai Oli is matchless, so is

his monkey dance in Sadma. When you think of ‘sad lullabye’

you cannot but list ‘Surmai Ankhiyon Se’. A list of his fabulous

performances is endless. And even though part one of

Vishwaroop won awards, this part ends up looking like a

vanity project of an aged superstar.  

To be real, he has not aged well. And even though he is shown

kicking and fighting hand to hand and maiming dozens of baddies,

it is tiring to watch him. The close-ups and love-making scene

are a bit much to watch. And yes, the fantasy of an older man

who has two young women falling all over themselves over

him is unwatchable. You wish he had simply directed this film with

a younger man in his role. When an older person attempts to

look and act young, it’s a tad weird watch.

This film uses a whole lot of footage from the earlier film to make

us understand who Wisam Kashmiri is. And the pivot point

camera movement or the Bullet Time shot, which you first saw

in The Matrix, is helpful here. It freezes the frame and you see

the action from almost everyone’s point of view. This technique

is used again and again and again until you want to fast forward

the film and say ‘get on with it’!

The action continues from where part one left off and we are

reintroduced to Wisam and co flying to England where Al

Qaeda is about to blow up a shipwreck full of World War two

bombs (in neat stacks like you saw in Wonder Woman) with

a nuclear device (‘Eh, what?’ you say) so that London drowns

in a gigantic Tsunami. They don’t call the British Authorities

because one guy they call is stuck in traffic. Stupid? Ridiculous?

What? And of course one the two women Wisam is with is a

doctor of Nuclear Medicine! She must dive in the waters to

identify and diffuse the bomb. Of course the terrorists are so

dumb that they leave the ‘audio switch’ that will set off the bomb

right above the bomb on the jetty…

If you thought the insulting game with a political stooge played

by Anant Mahadevan was terrible, the underwater fight for the

‘audio switch’ for the bomb tops it by being ridiculous. Water

(and high tide is approaching fast) restricts movement and to

see this kind of fight without displacing any sand (there’s even

a starfish!) is silly to say the least.

The action shifts to India, thankfully (the audience is tired of

token ‘foreigners’ and a visually fake backdrop of the MI6 HQ

building in Anant Mahadevan’s office window). The story gets

predictable here, with the women in Wisam’s life getting

kidnapped by Al Qaeda guys in Delhi while Wisam is waiting

for some meetings in South Block. Don’t ask why, but watch

Jaideep Ahlawat play a scary sidekick torturing Wisam’s wife

and mother with jalebis. Thankfully the other woman in Wisam’s

life his partner Ashmita (played by Andrea Jeremiah) is dead,

and the mother (played by Waheeda Rehman) has Alzheimer's.

The nuclear medicine doctor wife (Pooja Kumar) gets to be

plain awful when she mouths dialog like,’God will punish you!’

But you are yet to see Rahul Bose of the weird eye. He is Omar,

the terrorist who first befriended Wisam and took him to

Afghanistan. He’s now suffering from radiation poisoning, so he

eats but cannot keep his food down, his voice box is affected

and so is his skin. On top of it you see super hamming. The worst

part is that he just doesn’t seem to die. He doesn’t die when he

falls off a building, by American missiles, a nuclear device, and

lives even after being shot at by the hero  He does not even die

when he gets burnt. This new age Bhishma dies only after

seeing his family in the hospital and after hearing homilies

about how as a terrorist he would have killed his own children...

And even though this is an action film, it takes effort to stay awake

through totally implausible things happening on the screen. And for

a Kamal Haasan fan, a huge disappointment to acknowledge

that vanity overtook his talent.

(this review appears on www.nowrunning.com)