Judwaa 2, a film by David Dhawan, is the remake of Salman Khan’s Judwaa (1997). David Dhawan is known for his comedy films. David Dhawan’s combination with his stars viz. Govinda, Salman Khan etc. had certainly done wonders in the past at box office and also as far as entertainment values were concerned (in nineties). Judwaa with Salman Khan was no exception to this. Judwaa 2 is just a copy of the original Judwaa, with certain changes to the dialogues so as to incorporate the contemporary what’s app jokes. In fact, 1997 Judwaa is remake of Nagarjuna’s Telugu film Hello Bother (1994), which was in turn inspired from Jackie Chan’s Twin Dragons (1992). Years went by, obviously the world has changed. The sensibilities of the audience towards a film or the plot have already changed in last twenty years. Many jokes, or situations of the earlier version shown in Judwaa 2 seemed absolutely out of context, misfit and irrelevant. So, one of the pertinent questions which arise is whether this remake of Judwaa 2 was required at all or not. One thing is for sure that Varun Dhawan is the ideal choice to pull off the double role. Varun Dhawan is one of the contemporary actor who really puts his heart and soul into the characters, which we saw in his few films especially Badlapur. In Judwaa 2 as well, although Varun Dhawan is in terrific form, but not in his original form, he imitates Salman’s style at many points. Varun Dhawan has certainly made the two lead twin characters look different through his mannerisms, but comparisons are bound to happen between the original Judwaa Salman Khan and Varun Dhawan. Judwaa 2 is not a great entertainer, although, there are certain moments, where one bursts out into laughter.


The film begins with a businessman Rajiv Malhotra’s (Sachin) presence of mind to help the police to catch hold of a criminal Charles (Zakir Hussain). Parallelly, Rajiv’s wife (Prachi) delivers twin boys at the hospital. Charles runs away with one of the boys as a revenge, he gets caught but the child gets separated from parents. So, that is how Prem and Raja (Varun Dhawan) are introduced. Prem is brought up at London and Raja at Mumbai Versova. Prem is sophisticated music loving student and Raja is tapori. Raja also reached London along with his friend Nandu (Rajpal Yadav) with the help of Pappu Passport (Johny Lever). And that is when, challenges for Prem and Raja begin as they were born as conjoined twins, which means when they are in the same geographical location, their reflexes are same. Alishka (Jacqueline Fernandez) and Samaira (Taapsee Pannu) are the girls in Raja and Prem’s lives respectively. Confusion becomes the conflict in the script. Alishka and Samaira keep getting confused signals when Prem and Raja happens to come in front of them at different points of time. Kissing becomes an integral part of the screenplay whenever the leading girls meet the boys. The film also takes a dig at various actors by using their dialogue delivery style viz. Shahrukh Khan, Ranveer Singh etc. What happens in the film and how the story moves further is known to us. But yes, please do watch the full film for the climax scene, which has a surprise in store for the viewers.

Varun as Prem and Raja does get maximum screen time. Tapasee certainly tries her hand in comedy after Pink, Naam Shabana, and she is good as well as far s her comic timing is concerned, but she had nothing much to do. Jacqueline does that in which she is good at i.e. giggling. Anupam Kher as Samara’s father Bakshi, Rajpal Yadav as Raja’s friend Nandu, Pavan Malhotra as Officer Dhillon, Ali Asgar as Doctor, Vivan Bhatena as Alex, one of the villain, are all underutilized in the film. Johnny Lever just appears for a scene. One of the weakest link is Samaira’s mother’s character portrayed by Upasana Singh on screen. Her character is so poorly sketched, who is shown to be flirting with her daughter’s boyfriend.

Judwaa 2 is not a great entertainer in spite of Varun Dhawan’s terrific performance. The sensibilities of the audience towards a film or the plot have already changed in last twenty years. Many jokes, or situations of the earlier version seemed absolutely out of context, misfit and irrelevant. So, one of the pertinent questions which arise is whether this remake of Judwaa 2 was required at all or not.