Ghayal Once Again Review {2.5/5} & Review Rating
The year 1990 was really special for Bollywood's 'Punjab da puttar' Sunny Deol as it was in this year that his film GHAYAL (directed by Rajkumar Santoshi) went onto make history at the Box-Office. So much so that the echoes of 'Balwantrai ke kuttey', 'Jhakh marti hai police' and likes resonates and echoes amongst the cinegoers even today. Maybe that explains the reason as to why Sunny Deol has come up with this week's release GHAYAL ONCE AGAIN (which he has directed himself), a sequel to the original GHAYAL. Will GHAYAL ONCE AGAIN set the box-office on fire or will it get 'ghayal' err... 'hurt' at the Box-Office, lets analyze.
GHAYAL ONCE AGAIN starts off 15 years from where the first version left off. The film goes into the flashback mode wherein Ajay Mehra (Sunny Deol) shoots the villainous Balwant Rai (late Amrish Puri) and goes to jail. Years later, despite the fact that Ajay gets released from the jail, he still gets haunted by the flashes of the years gone by in his life. Ajay, who now is the chief of a news agency named 'Satyakaam', fights for every bit of the truth through his newspaper. And when he realizes (read 'discovers') that his arch rival Aditya Rajguru (Harsh Chhaya) is reason behind the killing of a young journalist Renu Sharma, Ajay goes hammer and tongs over Aditya and doesn't stop till the time he gets justice for the dead girl journalist by putting all the accused behind bars. Meanwhile, Ajay's close friend Joe D'souza (Om Puri), who is a retired DCP turned an active RTI activist gets killed by the business tycoon Raj Bansal (Narendra Jha)'s short tempered son in a fit of rage. Unknowingly, the whole incident accidentally gets captured in the camera that belongs to Anushka (Aanchal Munjal), who is best friends with Rohan (Shivam Patil), Zoya (Daina Khan) and Varun (Rishabh Arora). And when Raj Bansal gets to know about the secret video tape, he tells his henchmen to eliminate the four children as they pose extreme danger to him and well as to the image of his gigantic empire. Because of the immense respect and extreme faith in Ajay, the children get hell bent upon handing over the tape only to him, which Raj Bansal's men get to know through call tapping. In no time, they try and intercept every single way that would lead them to meet Ajay. On the other hand, Ajay's office gets 'raided' by various government departments. Do the children become successful in handing over the tape to Ajay, does Ajay become successful in exposing Raj Bansal and his nefarious activities and many such questions is what forms the rest of the film.
First things first. One has to give it to Sunny Deol for putting his heart and soul in the film as the director. However, even though his attempts look extremely sincere, what does not work for the film is that there are too many tracks (read 'stories') in the film that run simultaneously, thus confusing the viewers totally. Even the film's story (Sagar Pandya, Shaktimaan Talwar) is nothing new and suffers big time in the name of 'cinematic liberties'. The film's screenplay (Vishal Vijay Kumar, Sanjay Masoom) should have been written in order to suit today's taste. There are way too many flaws in the film. Many of the characters and their relationships remain unexplained till the end. For instance, Sunny Deol's profession oscillates between him being a news agency owner and a social activist. Is Soha Ali Khan merely a doctor who is treating Sunny, or is she also his girlfriend... and many such things. The final twist in the film is way too ridiculous and totally unbelievable. Even though the film starts off on a decent note, the first half becomes confusing towards the interval and then gets endlessly dragged throughout the second half. The biggest letdown in the film is absence of Sunny Deol's elements of trademark action and hard-hitting dialogues.
As for the performances, it's just not rocket science to say as to who leads the film right from the word 'go'- Sunny Deol. He does a sincere attempt as someone who cannot take no for an answer and cannot remain a mere spectator before injustice. Because of the fact that there were no trademark action scenes and mouthing of hard hitting one liners, it does become a bit of a disappointment for all his fans who will come to see Sunny Deol in his 'elements'. The veteran actors Om Puri and Neena Kulkarni are good. Soha Ali Khan, on the other hand, has a small role and nothing much to do. Even the likes of Harsh Chhaya and Tisca Chopra seem totally wasted. Narendra Jha does justice to his portrayal of a ruthless businessman that has been modeled on the lines of India's richest business tycoon. The four youngsters Aanchal, Shivam, Diana and Rishabh fail to impress.
The film's music (Shankar Mahadevan, Ehsaan Noorani, Loy Mendonsa) is no great show, whereas, the film's background music (Vipin Mishra) is decent. While the film's cinematography (Ravi Yadav) is average, the film's editing (Chandan Arora) could have been much better. The chase sequences in the train and the mall and also the helicopter actions scenes could have been either avoided or done in a better fashion, in order to make the film look good and believable. The film's action scenes (Dan Bradley) are limited, but decent. The vfx used in the film is very amateurish.
On the whole GHAYAL ONCE AGAIN comes across as a shoddy and outdated attempt of the classic remake. Fans of Sunny Deol might patronize the movie; however the aam junta might not take a liking to it. As a result the movie will have a tough time at the box office.
