Film: Kick 2
Cast: Ravi Teja, Rakul Preet Singh
Director: Surender Reddy
The bane of making any sequel is to live up to its original and make sure the brand is taken to the next level. After the success of Kick in 2009, one expects a similar kind of comedy and entertainment in Surender Reddy’s Kick 2.
Don’t get fooled by its title as the film is in no way a sequel and has a different plot, with no relation to the original potboiler.
Kalyan (Ravi Teja), who played the protagonist in Kick, is settled in the US now has a son, Robin Hood (also Ravi Teja). Just as Kalyan looked for kick in every small thing to keep him interested, Robin Hood seeks ‘comfort’ in everything. He becomes a doctor so that he wouldn’t have to depend on anybody else to treat him. With an ambition to set up his own hospital, Robin Hood is without any funds and his only option is to sell a large property in India which belongs to his father but has been seized by a criminal landlord.
To retrieve his land, Robin Hood flies to India where he meets Chaitra (Rakul Preet), who immediately falls in love with him. Meanwhile, a distant village called Vilaspur in Bihar is controlled by an oppressive village head Suleiman Singh Thakur (Ravi Kishan), who tortures and kills the innocent villagers, drugs their sons and rapes their daughters. How the comfort-seeking Robin Hood comes all the way to Vilaspur to save the hapless village makes for the rest of the story.
The film starts off at a decent pace with quick, smart humour. Brahmanandam, yet again is outstanding and provides more than a few laughs. There is enough in the first portion to keep the audience interested and the humour ensures the viewers are entertained. However, the film totally loses its plot in the second portion and becomes a monotonous drag. Music by Thaman Singh barely makes the cut, while Manoj Paramahamsa’s cinematography leaves a lot to be desired. Gautham Raju’s editing is atrocious and with a duration of 161 minutes, Kick 2 seems to drag on forever. The multiple shifts in plots doesn’t work and ends up frustrating the viewers, rather than engaging them.
Ravi Teja does what he does best as the stubborn, self-serving Robin Hood. His comic-timing is superb as always and the actor plays his part to perfection. Rakul is a surprise package. Given a meaty role for a change, she essays the character with aplomb and makes her presence felt. One expects plenty of comedy from Sanjay Mishra and Rajpal Yadav, but the duo appear in serious roles. While they do a fine job, they are let down by their poorly scripted characters. Ravi Kishan too is first rate as the antagonist.
While Surender Reddy tries to repeat the successful Kick formula, he runs out of ideas as he tries to experiment too much. In the end, a film that is supposed to entertain and make you laugh, turns out to be long, drab and unimaginative.
Kick 2 draws you in with its humour, interests you with its characters but leaves you frustrated in the end due to its unnecessary emotional content and action sequences. In the end, there’s just not even laughter.