Gadar 2 is back after 22 years and people have been excited to see their beloved Tara aka Sunny Deol on the big screen. With the movie coming out just before Independence Day and at the start of a long weekend, everyone is flocking to the cinemas to relive the nostalgia of Tara and Sakina’s story. To be honest, the movie does have a nostalgic touch and tries to transport you back to the days of Gadar. But apart from the sentimental value and the craze of seeing Sunny on the big screen, is Anil Sharma’s Gadar 2 really worth a watch? Read on to find out.

High on melodrama, low on value

After the events of Gadar, Tara (Sunny Deol), Sakina (Ameesha Patel), and Jeete (Utkarsh Singh) live peacefully in Punjab. Tara is still a truck driver, but his son Jeete is all grown up. He shares his father’s love for theatre and skips college to practise for plays. Sakina protects and pampers him and always supports his dreams. But Tara wants his son to join the army and not end up being a truck driver like him. So, he uses every tool at his disposal including chhittar parade to get his son to study and attend college. They are a happy little family with all the trauma of Partition behind them. Also, their extended family often shows up to celebrate and dance around for the smallest of occasions.

Tara returns to his sasuraal to save his son

The movie picks up in 1971 and things in Pakistan are heating up as General Iqbal Hamid (Manish Wadhwa) of the Pakistani Army is planning to start a war with India. Iqbal Hamid is the same general who ordered a death sentence for Ashraf Ali (Amrish Puri), Sakina’s father, for letting Tara and Sakina flee to India. He is still vengeful and wants to hunt down their family and kill them and burn India down and all that.

This leads to a tense situation between the two countries, and eventually, war breaks out. During the war, Tara is asked to deliver ammunition to the Indian Army where things go completely out of hand. And by the end of it, some of the Indian soldiers and a bunch of truck drivers are taken into captivity by the Pakistan army. Tara is also missing, and the family assumes that he has been taken by the Pakistan army. This makes Jeete run to Pakistan to find his father and bring him back home. But as it turns out, Tara was never in Pakistan, he was just injured. He returns home only to be told that now his son has been captured by the enemy. So, Tara must go to Pakistan to save him.

Gadar 2 doesn’t have much to offer

We’ve seen a lot of great patriotic movies over the years that highlight the whole India-Pakistan situation. Sadly, Anil Sharma is still stuck in the 90s and uses the same loud tactics, brutal action scenes,  and Hindu-Muslim fanaticism, and sells his patriotism doused in melodrama.

What could have been a great comeback is an overdone story filled with nostalgia from its prequel. The only good thing to appreciate about this movie is the music, specifically the remakes of Udd Jaa Kaale Kaavan and Main Nikla Gaddi Leke. Sure, seeing Sunny Deol and Ameesha Patel on the big screen after ages does hit a nerve, but other than that, most of the performances, songs, and dialogues are quite forgetful. There is a good effort from the rest of the cast, including Utkarsh Singh as Jeete, Simrat Kaur as Muskaan, his love interest, Manish Wadhwa as General Iqbal, and Gaurav Chopra as Devendra Rawat. But there is nothing that hits the mark and it stays below average for the most part.

Gadar 2 is now running in cinemas near you.

Can you watch it with your family?: It might be a little provocative, so heads up if you’re going with children.

Featured Image Source

Related: OMG 2 Review: Pankaj Tripathi Lights Up The Screen Despite The Lazy Writing