For a long time now, Ram Gopal Varma has been teetering on the brink of a career collapse. His latest offering Satya 2 adds a little extra push on his back for a descent into the oblivion.
The movie, though titled to pass off as a sequel, has nothing in common with the 1998 gamechanger apart from the shabby gunslingers and the seedy underworld dens they hole selves in. A decidedly glum fellow named Satya (Puneet Singh Ratn) arrives in Mumbai armed with his persistent scowl, tons of confidence and no less bad intentions. It’s the Mumbai without the underworld, we’re told. The old malcontents have retired, thrown behind bars, or taken the natural route to politics. But this new Satya of Ramu aims to revive the underworld, start a company that would hold the system and the powers that be to a ransom. Industrialists, cops, media, all in the crosshairs of his gunsight. On the side, he takes out time to woo a girl (Anaika Soti) who lord knows what she sees in him to reciprocate his overtures.
This new Company that Satya starts is different from the previous such anathemas. This one is visible only by its actions than by the actors, by its casualties than its entity. And to all the bloodbath, Ram Gopal Varma gives a moral justification through a voiceover one can’t but be amused by. The justification is: the bad which is done for larger good, is good. Go figure!
Ramu’s 1998 flick Satya had at its heart a taut screenplay, finely etched characters played by actors one better than the other. Satya 2 has at its heart the fear of a filmmaker who has put his last penny on his most trusted pony to win him the losing day. But as Ramu should have learned from the tragic-comedy of Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag, you can’t make the same soufflé twice.
So what we have in Satya 2 is a bouquet of sequences cherry-picked from Ramu’s own films -- both good and bad -- and cobbled into a threadbare story by Radhika Anand. Ramu does his bit by assaulting our dear senses with blaring background score and by vertiginous camera angles that makes one wonder if the cameraman had a spin in a washing machine before calling the shots.
The actors contribute no less in the damage. Puneet Singh Ratn tries to act imperious, cold and bold, but doesn’t command much screen presence. From the sidelines, only Mahesh Thakur, as a swanking, rotund builder leaves a mark. Anaita Soti (as Satya’s ladylove) and Aradhna Gupta don’t get much scope, and thankfully so.
Satya 2 is amongst Ramu’s tackiest films and they are not few by any count. The only thing admirable about it is the director’s resilience. By the dozen his career obits have been penned, but the dogged filmmaker keeps going one worse on his previous disasters. For that consistency he has my admiration.
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