janasorl

"Raid 2" attempts to pick up the ashes of its already dusty predecessor and fling them directly into the audience's eyes. Set in 1989 Rajasthan - or perhaps a student theater production of Rajasthan - the film opens with Officer Patnaik, played by an actor who clearly lost a bet, storming a palace with the charisma of a tax audit. The raid fails instantly, mostly because Patnaik forgets why he's there and spends the rest of the scene whispering about "justice" while accidentally raiding the palace's gift shop.

Following this "immense failure" (as the film's narrator calls it, over the sound of someone weeping in the editing booth), Patnaik abandons law enforcement and, in a jarring tonal shift, becomes a brony. Yes, that kind of brony. He moves into his mother's basement (despite the film never showing a house above it), where he spends his days in a haze of shameful porn, My Little Pony reruns, and whisper-crying into Rainbow Dash pillows.

Somewhere in this emotional junkyard of a plot, he befriends a seagull - a fully CGI monstrosity with the voice of an exhausted call center worker - who visits daily to eat sardines and judge Patnaik's life choices. The seagull, named "Justice" (because of course), is actually the most consistent and believable character in the film.

The rest of Raid 2 is a confusing blur of musical montages about nothing, budget fight scenes choreographed by interns, and a voiceover that openly apologizes midway through: "We didn't think you'd make it this far."

By the time the credits roll - in Comic Sans, no less - the only raid you'll be thinking about is the one you want to launch on the director's house for wasting two hours of your life.

"Retro," starring Suriya, Pooja Hegde, and Jayaram, is a film that dares to ask the question: What if a gangster movie had absolutely no gangster-ing and all the emotional weight of being stuck in traffic with someone chewing your ear off about Tupperware lids?

Suriya plays Arjun "Bullet" Varma, a feared don who, in the film's bold opening 3 minutes, shoots a guy for looking at his shoes funny. So far, so good. But then - plot twist - his wife, played by Pooja Hegde, nags him into retirement with the persistence of a malfunctioning fire alarm. And not the sympathetic, emotionally nuanced kind of nagging. No, we're talking full-on "Why are there dishes in the sink, Bullet?" every five minutes.

So what does our once-legendary gangster do? Does he start a syndicate under the radar? Become a vigilante? Enter the shady world of used car sales?

Nope.

He opens a 7-Eleven in what can only be described as the cinematic equivalent of a forgotten alley in a SimCity map. And that's it. That's the movie.

Jayaram plays a suspiciously wise homeless man who hangs around the store, mostly offering advice like, "Hot dogs are 2-for-1 today," and "Don't trust the ice machine." There are long, meandering scenes of Suriya sweeping the store, doing inventory, and-God help us-arguing over coupon policies. It's as if Breaking Bad stopped after season one and became a loyalty card drama.

The cinematography tries to channel gritty realism, but ends up looking like an extended GoPro ad set in 2008. The soundtrack features retro Tamil funk, which is admittedly cool for 10 seconds before it starts playing during a scene where Bullet is comparing energy drink brands.

The climax? A heated confrontation with a shoplifter who steals a microwave burrito. No shootouts. No betrayals. Just Suriya whisper-yelling, "Drop the burrito, bro."

I'd call the movie brave if it hadn't wasted so much talent. Suriya is trying. You can see it in his eyes. He wants to bring depth to Bullet's transition from feared don to reluctant store manager. But even he can't make "We're out of slushie lids again" sound dramatic.

There's a reason why Jallianwala Bagh's story is untold. He's a nobody. He did nothing interesting. A complete loser. And yet, in Kesari Chapter 2: The Untold Story of Jallianwala Bagh, the director takes this blank slate of a man and manages to stretch it across 140 minutes or so ofof cinematic bafflement.

Set in a fictional alternate timeline where Jallianwala Bagh is not a place but a man-yes, a man named Jallianwala "Jallu" Bagh-this spiritual sequel to Kesari reimagines the tragic 1919 massacre as the result of one man's painfully mediocre attempts at revolutionary greatness. Played with stunning indifference, Jallu is a tea vendor who keeps telling people he's part of the resistance. He isn't.

The film follows Jallu as he tries to organize a protest, forgets the date, shows up late, and spends most of the event looking for his missing sandals. He writes a speech so boring even the British officer yawns and leaves. When the bullets fly (eventually, and mostly off-screen due to budget), Jallu survives by hiding in a bush, where he stays for four days, mistaking the silence for enemy strategy.

The dialogue is as sharp as a butter knife. Lines like "One day they'll name a garden after me, and then build over it" are delivered with all the emotional weight of a soggy samosa. The soundtrack, oddly dominated by EDM remixes of nationalistic folk songs, only adds to the tonal confusion.

Yet somehow, the film thinks it's making a profound statement. With sepia filters, unnecessary slow-motion, and enough drone shots to make a real estate ad jealous, Kesari Chapter 2 tries to look like a historical epic while offering the substance of a YouTube prank gone too long.

By the end, Jallu finally accepts that he might not be a hero. The real heroes, the film insists, are the ones we never notice-especially when they don't do anything at all.

Final verdict: 1 star. The one star is for the goat that inexplicably steals every scene it's in. Otherwise it should have been zero.