Emraan Hashmi, Disha Patani, Shabana Azmi, Suvinder Vicky, Vijayant Kohli, AtulKumar, Aniruddh Rawal and Puran Gabbi<\/p>\n
Awarapan 2 Review: Raghav Juyal said in The Ba***ds Of Bollywood, \u201cAkkha Bollywood Ek Taraf, Aur Emraan Hashmi Ek Taraf.\u201d And it wasn\u2019t fanboy hyperbole; that was prophecy. Awarapan 2 stormed past Rs 28.90 crore worldwide on Day 1 alone, the biggest opener of Hashmi\u2019s career. That too, despite Sunny Deol\u2019s big Batwara 1947 with usual patriotic flavour releasing the same day.<\/p>\n
The film wastes no time announcing what it\u2019s here to do. It opens with \u201cTu alag hai tu juda hai, magar tujhme bhi wahi khuda hai\u201d – and just like that, you\u2019re thrown headfirst into a wave of nostalgia the trailers had not promised.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the same masala platter Bollywood has served for decades – hero, villain, betrayal, revenge, a heroine, music and an underworld that never sleeps. Plenty of films drown in this exact recipe. Awarapan 2 doesn\u2019t. Instead, it grabs you by the collar and drags you back to the 2000s, to the era when Emraan Hashmi wasn\u2019t just an actor but a genre unto himself. Tera Mera Rishta and Toh Phir Aao don\u2019t just play in the background; they hit like a memory you didn\u2019t know you missed.<\/p>\n
This film knows exactly whose shoulders it\u2019s standing on. The film will remind you of Jannat and Gangster: A Love Story, and of course Awarapan, not as baggage, but as a love letter, with the makers making sure newcomers never feel like outsiders at the reunion. And in true Hashmi tradition, the soundtrack arrives to outlive the film\u2019s theatrical run – just like most of Emraan Hashmi\u2019s films.<\/p>\n
Hashmi plays Shivam Pandit, a man who finds his \u201cdil ka sukoon\u201d – Aaliyah – only to watch her slip away all over again. That\u2019s the gut-punch moment the film pivots on, and from there he\u2019s a man on a mission, refusing point-blank to lose her \u201cyet again\u201d.<\/p>\n
The chase lands him in Bangkok, shot on real streets rather than studio backlots, where he has to earn the trust of Zorawar (Puran Gabbi) – a man who can end a life without so much as a flicker of hesitation, a family trait passed down like an heirloom. Whether Shivam actually finds Aaliyah is a secret the film guards till the very end, but one thing is never in doubt: nothing gets in his way. As Hashmi himself once put it in Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai, \u201cRaaste ki parwah karoonga toh manzil bura maan jayegi\u201d – and he lives by it here too.<\/p>\n
Yes, the plot is a road you\u2019ve walked before – hero infiltrates gang, wins trust, drops dialogues (\u201cAankh khol kar khela kar\u201d lands and stays), and detonates one larger-than-life set piece after another. But somehow it never feels over the top. Hashmi doesn\u2019t act like a man retracing old steps; he acts like a man who owns the road.<\/p>\n
Credit where it\u2019s due: the film doesn\u2019t dawdle. It moves fast, and the exact moment you feel a \u201cseen this before\u201d sigh coming on, a song swoops in and yanks you straight back into 2000s Bollywood, no questions asked.<\/p>\n
If there\u2019s a flaw, it\u2019s trigger-happy – there are simply too many gunfights. But the choreography is slick enough to make even the repetition go down easy, and they\u2019re leagues ahead of the action scenes in Alia Bhatt\u2019s Alpha. Hashmi never once looks like he\u2019s play-acting through them. A couple of the action beats are staged well enough to genuinely catch you off guard – the kind where you need a second just to process what you saw.<\/p>\n
Emraan Hashmi isn\u2019t just the lead here; he\u2019s the pulse the entire film is wired to. Every punch he throws, every gunshot he fires, every line he drawls out sends the theatre into whistles and full-throated hooting. At my screening, one scene alone had the crowd going for nearly five minutes.<\/p>\n
Shabana Azmi, cast as antagonist Nafisa Nawaz, is handed a role with real teeth and then barely allowed to bite. The part could\u2019ve been a career highlight – one glimpse of her real menace in a single standout scene proves it – but she\u2019s rationed screen time like the film can only afford one star at a time, and that star was never going to be anyone but Hashmi.<\/p>\n
Disha Patani\u2019s Zara never quite finds her footing, drifting through scenes mostly as a cello player and sometimes a woman in Hashmi\u2019s love and nothing else. Her on-screen gangster brother Zorawar fares little better, unpredictable in flashes but rough around every edge. The real find here is Aniruddh Rawal as their autistic brother Sikander.<\/p>\n
Vijayant Kohli, Suvinder Vicky, and Atul Kumar hold the fort reliably in support, doing exactly what\u2019s asked of them and doing it well.<\/p>\n
Should you watch it? Without a doubt. Go for the nostalgia, go for Emraan Hashmi doing what only Emraan Hashmi can do, and go for a soundtrack that once ruled your playlist. Overall, go for the King of Romance.<\/p>\n