Singham Returns (2014)

Genre: Action/Crime

Starring: Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor, Amol Gupte, Dayanand Shetty, Anupam Kher, Zakir Hussain, Sharat Saxena, Mahesh Manjrekar

The ever-so ferocious lion returns once again and this time he is out to clean the city of Mumbai. The first movie gained a wide fan following for showing an aggressive cop and his fight against crime, corruption and poor governance. It was a movie that the common man related with and wished for something like this to happen in the real world. The second movie lives off the success of the first with Bajirao Singham (Devgn) now being a part of the Mumbai police force. When a officer from Singham's squad is found dead inside an ambulance loaded with money, fingers start pointing towards corruption in the police force. Guruji (Kher) is an honest politician who wants to revolutionise the political system by introducing younger ministers, more accountability and focus towards development. Prakash Rao (Hussain) is a corrupt politician who doesn't like the way Guruji is changing the political landscape. Along with phoney godman, Swamiji (Gupte) the duo decide to teach Guruji a lesson and eradicate anyone who comes in their path. Singham decides to step in and prevent Rao and Swamiji from fulfilling their needs and to ensure that his deceased colleagues name is not tarnished with false accusations. There were a lot of unique elements in the previous movie because of which it became so like-able. There were some dialogues, acting styles, story and a host of other smaller things that contributed towards the first movies success. The second movie, sadly, decides to cash in on all the success factors of the previous movies and hence lacking any kind of innovation. The famous dialogue of Ata Maajhi Satakli was chanted numerous times, to the extent of making a song on it. Prakash Raj too had a major contribution in the previous movie for his brilliant performance of a villain. His sole performance in Singham is probably why he has managed to get a lot more work these days. Amole Gupte and Zakir Hussain look like the conventional Bollywood baddies and do not seem to do anything special. The good thing about the movie is that it has equal amounts of energy and aggression as the previous movie with Ajay Devgn making strong statements and shouting every now and then. All-in-all the second part seemed like the first movie all over again with all the good elements re-used to the point that it became simply annoying. And yes, Kareena Kapoor plays the irrelevant love interest with far too much over acting and being a part of all the song sequences.

Thumbs up: Great levels of power and aggression, enjoyable but typical Bollywood action

Thumbs down: Over doing the good bits from the first movie

Rating: 5.8/10