Review : Yaariyaan 2 : Atrocious!

In Bollywood, the trend of cashing in on the hit titles is going strong. Whatever the story, the producer or the director picks up a hit title and announces the film as the next part or sequel. In 2014, T Series launched Divya Khosla Kumar as the director with Yaariyaan. Depthwise movie did not have anything but the youthful starcast and lilting music made it a hit film. Now T Series has come up with it’s second part, Yaariyaan 2, wherein Divya Khosla Kumar is given to play the lead role. Actually it’s atrociously made film despite being a remake of a superhit Malayalam film Bangalore Days.

Ladlee Chibber (Divya Khosla Kumar) gets married to a rich and sauve Abhay Katyal (Yash Dasgupta) from Mumbai as per her mother’s wish. Her cousins Shikhar Randhawa (Meezaan Jaffery) too migraes to Mumbai, for a job of a delivery boy, and starts staying with another cousin Bajrang aka Bajju (Pearl V Puri). These three cousins have a very strong bond like real siblings, and always have each other’s back in whatever situation. Abhay is indifferent to Ladlee and later it is found that he is in love with somebody else (Priya Prakash Varrier) making Ladlee’s marriage loveless. Shikhar’s passion is bike racing but he has to give it up for earning his bread and butter. Bajrang is a docile type who is scared of his strict and nasty boss. All three are in a mess emotionally but stand rock solid by each other in any situation. How they fight their personal crises forms the crux of the story.

Radhika Rao and Vivay Sapru are credited for the screenplay and direction. They have copied Bangalore Days scene by scene but can not capture the essence of it. Parent’s expectations from their children is being discussed but due to screenplay with a lacuna, Yaariyaan 2 doesn’t hit the right cord. Both the directors have been directing music videos, and most of the film they seem to be doing the same. The first Yaariyaan’s music was superhit but same can not be said about it’s second. Production values are high and the technical aspects too are of high standard. Bur the film lacks the emotional depth. Divya Khosla Kumar, Meezan Jaffery and Pearl V Puri bring across the camaraderie nicely but no one explores the depth of the character. Yash Dasgupta, Priya Prakash Varrier, Anusara Rajan perform nicely.

Yaariyaan 2 is an example of how to atrociously crush a remake of a superhit film.

**

Keerti Kadam.