‘Singham Again’ movie review: Ajay Devgn returns in deathly dull franchise

After his stints in Goa and Mumbai, Singham (Devgn) is now posted in Kashmir, heading a Special Operations Group of the local police. The appearance of Omar Hafeez (Jackie Shroff), an old nemesis, sets the film in motion. Hafeez’s grandson, Zubair (Arjun Kapoor with a toothy grin), is a dreaded drug lord embedded in Sri Lanka, bent on revenge. After Singham’s newfangled ‘Shiva’ squad — a covert unit of cops with no “jurisdiction” — busts Zubair’s ring, he responds by kidnapping Singham’s wife, Ramleela impresario Avni (Kareena Kapoor Khan). Before he reveals his endgame, Zubair is talked up as a sadistic, fire-breathing butcher known as ‘Danger Lanka’, though that is not the scariest part. The scariest part is Shetty and his writers mobilizing the might of half of Bollywood to bring down a character played by Arjun Kapoor.

The trailer for Singham Again was nearly five minutes long. In addition to spoiling several surprises — slender cameos by Deepika Padukone and Tiger Shroff, besides expected ones by Ranveer Singh and Akshay Kumar — it revealed the film’s central framing device: Ramayana. Shetty intercuts his mothballed and predictable action with TV serial-like fragments from Avni’s Ramleela. The parallels are toe-curlingly awkward, like a character assuming the fake name of Mrigaya (deer) to assist in Sita Haran. At least Akshay Kumar, a movie star obsessed with helicopters, makes sense as Jatayu; I could not make head or tail of Shroff’s Kalaripayattu-friendly Laxman.

As the Bajrang Bali equivalent, Ranveer Singh’s Simmba — doubtless, the best thing to have happened to this franchise — makes the most of his hour. The film’s ‘Lanka Dahan’ sequence isn’t propulsive or spectacularly staged, but Singh is his usual, goofy self: “Sorry to inconvenience you, bro”, he tells Zubair, playfully stretching those vowels like they’re gum. Singh alone seems concerned if the audience is having a good time. Devgn, who rarely smiles on screen these days, is the same, case-hardened cop of old. His seriousness dulls the few ‘mass moments’ Shetty devises for him: there is a neatly outlandish idea of Singham cocking a finger and headshotting a thug, or looking like he did, but it is not sold well.

In the film’s trailer, we see Devgn standing under a saffron flag; it has ‘Jai Shri Ram’ written on it, and bears a vector of the Hindu God. At the behest of the censor board, the flag has been altered to an impartial red (the religiously charged background score, too, has been changed). The scene’s purpose, though, stands plain as day. Past Singham films have fixated on the character’s Maratha and Hindu identity. This one does the same, linking religion with regional and national pride. “I respect Gandhi but worship Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj,” Singham roars elsewhere (Omar’s idol, by contrast, is Genghis Khan).

It is difficult to overlook, given the franchise’s track record, the religious and majoritarian signalling that permeates every frame of Singham Again (‘Ayodhya’ is mentioned often, and there is a play on the words ‘jhanki’ and ‘baki’). Shetty would likely defend his film as a work of escapist entertainment. But by that metric too it disappoints. The assembly of stars in the climax is as slapdash and bereft of fresh ideas as the one that capped Sooryavanshi. The Cop Universe is nearing a heat death. No cameo — not even one by a famously effervescent Bihar cop — can mask its creative shortfall.

Singham Again is currently running in theatres