Raid 2 review: Worth every penny

Raid 2 review: Worth every penny

‘Raid 2’ - The sequel to the 2018 sensational hit ‘Raid’ that starred Ajay Devgn as Amay Patnaik the no nonsense honest IT officer who demolishes the ego of the power drunk politician ‘Tauji’ (Saurabh Shukla), this time in the sequel coming after a wait of more than six years, takes the mighty Dada Manohar Bhai (Riteish Deshmukh).

Director Raj Kumar Gupta gets three more writers in the sequel, while the 2018 original ‘Raid’ had Ritesh Shah as the writer, ‘Raid 2’ has Ritesh Shah along with the director Raj Kumar Gupta, Jaideep Yadav and Karan Vyas.

As a result, and also by the standard norms and studio demands ‘Raid 2’ gets a bigger scale, Dada Manohar Bhai (Riteish Deshmukh) is more charismatic, young and smart villain on paper than the cunning, orthodox old fox like Tauji from the original.

In ‘Raid’ where Amay Patnaik has a single agenda of finding the hidden wealth of the ‘Bahubali’ politician reportedly said to be loosely based on the Congress MLA and a former member of the Rajya Sabha, Sardar Inder Singh in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh.

In ‘Raid 2’ we see Patnaik not only investigating the hidden wealth of Dada Bhai but also investigating other serious crime by Dada Bhai (reportedly loosely based on the perfume dealer Piyush Jain).

In ‘Raid’ we saw a very interesting family angle that introduced various other characters whereas in ‘Raid 2’ the sequel, the family is hardly there but a mother is given great importance. Dada Bhai literally worships his mother every day and he is hailed as the messiah of his region.

Enters Patnaik and the fake world of Dada Bhai gets busted one by one. And in the process ‘Tauji’ is keeping a close eye.

‘Raid’ was unique in its concept so was more exciting, sequels face this hurdle as the concept, format is known, the makers are in pressure to create something extraordinary and it seems the writers and the director where in pressure to create something larger, bigger, more massy than the original.

In this zest, they start adding more crimes in the sequel and sacrifice on sly humour/dark humour (the grandmother episode) which was the USP of ‘Raid’.

Amit Sial comes in the second half to provide laughter and he does a fine job but still we feel something is missing.

‘Raid 2’ begins on an interesting note and has niece twist and turns and the rivalry between Ajay Devgn and Riteish Deshmukh, the battle of upmanship between the two keeps us engage.

Performance

Ajay Devgn nails it yet again as Amay Patnaik IRS, Deputy Commissioner of Income Tax.

Riteish Deshmukh as Dada Manohar Bhai is excellent.

Vaani Kapoor as Malini Patnaik had hardly anything to do.

Rajat Kapoor as Kaul, Chief Commissioner of Income Tax is fine in a brief role.

Saurabh Shukla as Rameshwar Singh/"Tauji" is good

Supriya Pathak as Amma, Dada Manohar Bhai's mother is competent.

Amit Sial as Lallan Sudheer is hilarious.

Good support comes from Shruti Pandey as Geeta Devi, Brijendra Kala as Vinay Bakaya, Yashpal Sharma as Devinder Gehlot and Govind Namdev as Kunwar Kuldeep.