'Sadak 2' review: Mahesh Bhatt's comeback film has a bad '90s hangover

There's no better way of saying this. Filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt's comeback film 'Sadak 2' suffers from a bad hangover of the 1990s. The decade was dominated by the mindless pulp in Bollywood - that may have worked back in the day, but 21 years on, the same content seems jaded.

Bhatt, who has given India iconic films like 'Arth', 'Daddy', 'Naam' and 'Zakhm', completely butchers his own 1991 hit film 'Sadak' with its sequel and casts his daughter, Alia in one of the most convoluted stories to have come out this year. Alia is known for her talent and has often lifted some of the most mediocre films just by her performances.  But this film is beyond repair and despite having a formidable cast and some hummable music, 'Sadak 2' is unable to create an impression.

The plot revolves around a depressed Ravi (Sanjay Dutt) who is yet to come to terms with the death of his wife Pooja (Pooja Bhatt ) and has suicidal thoughts. He hallucinates about his wife, hears her voice often, and tries to kill himself but is unable to. On one such night when he is planning to kill himself, Arya (Alia Bhatt) comes knocking at his door claiming she had made a booking for a taxi three months ago. Ravi of course is not keen initially but eventually agrees as keeps hearing his wife coaxing him. He takes Arya and her boyfriend Vishal on a road trip to Kailash- a wish that Arya needs to fulfill of her dead mother.

Arya is also on some sort of a mission to bust the nexus of a spiritual guru (Makrand Deshpande) who she blames for her mother's death. She has a gullible father (Jisshu Sengupta) who is deeply influenced by the guru as is her stepmother (Priyanka Bose) whom Arya hates.

If the plot wasn't convoluted enough, there are plenty of twists in the film that put an average Abbas-Mustan film to shame. Ravi may be hallucinating about his dead wife, but he quickly warms up to Arya and makes it his life mission to protect her from villainous gurus and evil family members.

It's also amazing how relations are formed and broken in a matter of seconds in the film. From the screenplay to the dialogues, everything is exaggerated. Alia tries to make her Arya look convincing but its the shoddy script that lets her down. Aditya Roy Kapur looks perenially out of place. Bhatt even manages to make actors like Makrand Deshpande, Pooja Bose and Jisshu Sengupta ham in their respective roles. The 20 minutes long climax makes you cringe and laugh at the same time at the bizarreness of the entire situation.

What starts off as a story that aims at highlighting the undue advantage several spiritual gurus takes of their followers in the name of God, slowly becomes this bizarre love -cum redemption story of a suicidal man who warms up to a loony girl who wants to file petitions against fake gurus. In a matter of a few hours he becomes her sole custodian and she, being conned all her life by shrewd family members, finds it easy to trust him.

The last time Mahesh Bhatt directed a movie was in 1999. A lot has changed(for the better) in Bollywood in the two decades when Bhatt took retirement. Sure, he was still an integral part of his production house Vishesh Films, produced and wrote some hit films in the last two decades but Bhatt remained away from the filmmaking process in general. The time lag is evident in 'Sadak 2'. It's a shoddy, poorly edited film, which lacks a good script and it wastes talents like Alia Bhatt, Makrand Deshpande, Jisshu Sengupta and Priyanka Bose. The only person who manages to create an impression is Sanjay Dutt, though his performance isn't a lasting one.

Mahesh Bhatt's 'Sadak 2' is just two decades late. A film on lost love, redemption and fake spiritual gurus may have worked at the turn of the century but in 2020 makes for a laughable story.