Premise: A war based on a dangerous bio-weapon in the early 1980s was successfully stopped by our very own Sardar the spy. SJ Suryah hunts down the hidden weapon for a personal vendetta. How Karthi saves the day form the remaining story.

Writing/ Direction: Opens up by giving a gist that a dangerous mission that was solved forty years back is coming back to haunt the world. Post which the film leisurely sets the storyworld, a lengthy chase sequence to begin with, that is at least within the subject. But unnecessarily wastes time with scenes involving Yogi Babu and Nizhalgal Ravi, also none of their jokes click. The film gets better when the flashback comes into the picture, with secret agents Karthi and Malavika Mohanan on the floor. The biohazard crime is familiar, yet the way it is presented here is super interesting. It is a sequel, but still the fact of going back in time is also placed correctly. There is also a strong emotional backing for the protagonist that drives him to Japan to accomplish the mission successfully. The drama heats up well in the progress that links with the present timeline, the introduction of the old-age Sardar and a solid twist with respect to the villain at the interval point gives us hopes for the second half a potential. But unfortunately, there is not even a single good scene in the cat and mouse space. There is no attempt to utilize the potential of the dramatic face-off between Karthi and SJ Suryah. Overload of information, unlike the other PS Mithran movies, the topic isn’t pleasing here, mainly because of the villain’s pointless ideology. Maybe because the storytelling is flat, the content didn’t hit as hard as it should have. The fort sequence with infinite tunnels goes on and on, the lengthy video call scene with SJ Suryah is crashing bore and the climax is dragged beyond limits. Dialogues are poorly written with repetitive documentary style messaging, plus using terms like ‘Bolo 650’ and ‘Fix Action 500’ due to legal rights issues make it a mockery. The vision is as large as a Hollywood film, but the making and execution falters, also some of the moments in the flow are sure to remind us of a few popular English franchises like James Bond, Mission Impossible, etc.

Performances: No scope to express much for Karthi, except for one touching situation in the flashback, he has done what he is bound to do as a spy. SJ Suryah actually has the potential to perform, but overacting to the core, he keeps shouting all the time and it was so annoying, despite having a strong base, his character development is so weak. Meaty role for Malavika Mohanan, she fits in the role of a secret agent and goes all style and some substance too. Ashika Ranganath exists throughout the movie but still has zero importance in the story, there would have been no difference without her. Yogi Babu, Nizhalgal Ravi and Devadarshini are of very little use, they are brought in for commercial purposes and they barely offer any entertainment. Poor man Chinni Jayanth, appears like villain’s right hand but gets an atmosphere artist treatment with not even a single dialogue.

Technicalities: Thankfully no separate songs, the montage tracks are duds. But we always bet big on Sam.C.S’ background score and it is highly disappointing here. Felt like stock music at many places as the treatment is old-school. Whatever that is shot for real without CGI/ green screen looks amazing on the big screen, some AI, stock and visual effects involved shots provide the visual jumps. The film is already uninteresting and it runs for three hours long, there is space to trim almost 30 minutes, but editor Vijay Velukutty has dealt with the lengthy duration factor casually. The intent is to go for a grand scale actioner, already there is no sufficient staging or purposeful drama for the fight sequences, in addition the stunt choreography is also dull.

Verdict: The core subject is interesting with an engaging backstory. Pretty much nothing else works out, overdose of messaging with weak writing. Flat screenplay that barely has any high points, that too the film runs for 3 hours with the second half dragged to a huge extent, the cat and mouse game is underwhelming despite having potential.

SARDAR 2 - Disappointing spy flick with a promising plot, but execution falters!

Rating - 2/ 5.