Awarapan 2

Emraan Hashmi still has it in slick, staid sequel

Emraan Hashmi is still the king of beautiful heartbreak, returning as the brooding, wounded hero Bollywood has always loved, but the sequel struggles to live up to the legacy of the cult original.

Emraan Hashmi remains the soul of Awarapan 2. He doesn't try to recreate the younger Shivam from 2007; instead, he plays him as a man who has lived with his pain for nearly two decades. The action is easily one of the film's biggest strengths, with sequences that are brutal, physical and packed with impact.

...one hopes that the fervor for the film (which is on a high until Independence Day weekend—at least!) is maintained, for the sake of the film’s makers and for Emraan Hashmi. Nitin Kakkar’s sixth film, hopefully, will be his first hit. Otherwise, I have never cared for such dark, brooding fare as value-for-money and worth my time and effort.

For Emraan Hashmi fans, this is less a sequel and more a reunion. Awarapan 2 may not match the emotional intensity of the original, but it delivers enough massy entertainment to keep the core audience engaged.

Emraan Hashmi holds the sequel as grieving lover with a purpose, delivering a performance that anchors the film despite its uneven narrative pacing and predictable plot developments.

Lots of style, very little substance make Awarapan 2.0 a fun but unimpressive single-screen wonder. But, if you decide to bite the bullet, do know you'd need teeth and nerves of steel to chew through the barrage of mediocre writing and hyper-stylised direction.

An out-and-out Emraan Hashmi show driven by nostalgia, but that's all.

Awarapan 2 may give Emraan Hashmi the massy comeback his fans have been waiting for, but nostalgia can only do so much. Beneath Hashmi's performance, callbacks and familiar music lies a screenplay far too ordinary to match the buildup legacy of its predecessor.

On the whole, Awarapan 2 is a fair entertainer and it will do well at the box-office. Its music and the bountiful Independence Day weekend will give a boost to its collections.

...the sequel to the 2007 crime thriller drama expands the art of fan service — and trusts the music to tide it over.

Awarapan 2 reconstructs the idea of Emraan Hashmi as Shivam—the brooding hero, gangster, wounded lover, redemption-seeker—without constructing either emotional or procedural coherence around him. At 140 minutes, there are shootings, betrayals and rescues, but surprisingly little urgency.

Awarapan 2 brings Emraan Hashmi back as Shivam Pandit in a darker, more emotional journey of rage, romance, pain and redemption. Driven by nostalgia, strong performances and soulful music, the sequel adds fresh emotional depth while retaining the old-school charm fans loved.

The sequel overlooks what made Shivam compelling in the first place. Even if the action sequences have improved multifold and the camera offers visuals to marvel over, the film struggles to hold itself together as it imagines the world of Awarapan purely as a generic genre piece, when its soul lies elsewhere.