Movie: Ghayal Once Again
Direction: Sunny Deol
Cast: Sunny Deol, Om Puri, Shivam Patil, Aanchal Munjal, Soha Ali Khan
Music: Vipin Mishra, Shankar Ehsaan Loy
Cinematographer: Ravi Yadav
Editor: Chandan Arora
Genre: Drama, Action
Rating: ∗∗∗
What is it about: This film marks the direct sequel of “Ghayal” released back in 1990. The film picks up from Ajay Mehra’s (Sunny Deol) post jail time trying to cope with his dreadful past. One fine day Ajay’s best friend ACP D’Souza (Om Puri) is murdered in the guise of an accident, the evidence leading to this conspiracy lands in the hands of 4 youngsters. What happens following this forms the crux of the story directed by Sunny Deol.
Why it’s disappointing: The movie was well written, but there are quite a few bumps in the screenplay, which brings down the intensity of the story. The movie runs only for 128 minutes. But due to these roadblocks it seems like a drag in few places. The film compromises little too much on emotional clichés. After which it takes a little bit too much of cinematic liberty in the late second half, which could have been done in a different way, making it a credible action film. It takes a sweet time of around 50 minutes to warm up to the subject. If these potholes had been handled cautiously “Ghayal Once Again” would have been a blockbuster like its predecessor.
What to watch out for: It did take 50 minutes to warm up, but after that 50th minute it takes a U turn with a sharply executed sequence leading to the interval block. That sequence did wake up the audience, who did nothing but whistle and applaud for every scene. This excitement does goes on and off in the second half.
Sunny Deol as a director did a decent job with this sequel. He not only established himself as a better director but managed to deliver a performance which revived his legacy “Dhaai Kilo Ka Haath” image with a bang. He reprised as Ajay Mehra and maintained that integrity of the role with same anger and rage making it a credible follow up. The audience really enjoyed seeing Sunny Deol in action after such a long gap, which reminds you of the old Sunny full of rage and anger.
The 4 youngsters played by Shivam Patil as Rohan, Rishabh Arora as Varun, Aanchal Munjal as Anushka and Diana Khan as Zoya were apt for the role. They performed their respective characters with great dedication. And their characterization was perfect making them convincing.
Soha Ali Khan as Rhea, Tisca Chopra as Sheetal Bhansal, Abhilash Kumar as Kabir Bhansal, Narendra Shah as Raj Bhansal and Manoj Joshi as The Home Minister gave a commendable performance, making a great ensemble of supporting cast.
The movie hardly had one song to its credit, but the background score by Vipin Mishra was gripping setting Sunny right on track. The cinematography by Ravi Yadav was great, he made Mumbai look like Bangkok in most of the scenes, and captured the speedy action scenes with perfect grip. This was well edited and presented by Chandan Arora.
Then finally comes the action, done by Hollywood fame Dan Bradley who has Independence Day, Spider-Man 2, Spider-Man 3, The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum etc…to his credits. In association with Parvez Sheikh, the action was choreographed well with racy sequences keeping you at the edge of your seat. But yes there were couple of scenes which looked awful, but the others made it up for that.
Verdict: Sunny Deol as a director managed to keep up with the current trend and dished out an action thriller, which nudges the obvious hurdles and turns out to be a worthy entertainer. End of the day giving the fans what they had come for. Worth a watch for its filmmaking, action sequences, dialogues and Sunny’s hard hitting comeback.
