Ghayal Once Again review: Sunny Deol's angry action hero will leave the audience jaded

Director: Sunny Deol

Cast: Sunny Deol, Soha Ali Khan, Om Puri, Narendra Jha, Nadira Babbar, Tisca Chopra, Shivam Patil, Aanchal Munjal, Rishabh Arora, Dianaa Khan.

Ratings: (1/5)

Ajay Mehra (Sunny Deol) is back. He went to prison. He lost his sanity and his wife. But he got therapy and survived. And 25 years later, the angry vigilante with the dhai kilo ka haathhas a new nemesis. This one is Raj Bansal (Narendra Jha), a business tycoon who lives in a structure reminiscent of Antilla, has a helipad,
hackers, two kids including a spoiled brat of a son, a concerned mother, and owns pretty much everything in the country including the police, politicians and bureaucrats.

© Provided by India Today

Released by Reliance Entertainment and written and directed by Sunny Deol, 'Ghayal Once Again' is a reminder that sequels are always superfluous unless they are as inventive and striking as 'Mad Max: Fury Road'. This desi one treads on tried-and-tested territory of one man vs the system and then becomes 'Not Without My Daughter'. If you really want to watch a film about a corrupt system, see Tamil filmmaker Vetri Maaran's realistic and riveting 'Visaranai'.

Sunny Deol cries, screams, fights, jumps off trains, runs, falls and occasionally also attempts to act. The last one is especially hard but he is unfazed for he is the aam aadmi who runs a publication which exposes the criminals hidden behind the powerful. But things go out of control when four youungsters go to Karnala Bird sanctuary to make a documentary. When a bird flies out of the frame, they end up capturing Bansal's hot-headed son killing activist (Om Puri). A hard drive is the reason behind chase pe chase pe chase.

Missing from the trailer is the pet dog who initially saves the lives of the youth. Soon the quartet is kidnapped by the army of Troy, head of Bansal's security. Mr Bansal, we are guessing, doesn't trust desi brawny bodyguards. Nobody can stop the contumacious Ajay on his mission to extirpate Bansal and save the nation from his evil monopoly (and his overacting son), especially when he discovers that he also has his own teenage child to rescue.

Barring one well-staged chase sequence which unfolds in a mall, there is little here that gets the adrenaline going. The screenplay, written by Deol, Shaktimaan and Sagar Pandya, instead of offering an engrossing story is more a series of action events put together. Some of them with substandard visual effects and visible stunt doubles.

Often the film flaunts the earnestness on its cause and then progresses to become ridiculous such as when Bansal announces that the death of his son will lead to a stock market crash and investors committing suicide. Ok then. At best, 'Ghayal 2.0' seems like Deol, 58, reliving his glorious past as the last.