SOTY 2 Movie Rating
Director: Punit Malhotra
Duration: 150 minutes
Language: Hindi
When a middle class Rohan seeks admission in the respected St. Teresa College, following his childhood crush Mridula, he realizes life in the Dehradun college is not all hunky-dory as it had seemed from the outside. To survive in the cutthroat competition at this new place, he will have to do all that it takes to make him the one guy, who will lift the trophy of the Student of the Year.
Even before the film could release on the big screens, it was trolled left, right and centre from the time producers decided to drop its trailers. ‘Student Of The Year 2’ became a laughing stock and it was clear as water that there’s nothing much we as an audience should expect from Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions. Directed by Punit Malhotra, we are not sure whether ‘SOTY 2’ is a sour, rehashed version of its predecessor or a terrible mishmash of the good, old Archie comics we grew up reading.
Small townie Rohan (Tiger Shroff) is super talented and a jack of all trades at his low-brow Pishorimal Chamanlal College in Mussoorie. When his childhood sweetheart, Mridula (Tara Sutaria) who has enrolled herself in the prestigious St. Teresa College, Rohan only dreams of being there for his girlfriend. And as luck has it, his sports quota proves him worthy of an admission into the esteemed institution, where padhaai-likaahi is secondary and extra-curricular activities are of prime importance.
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When Rohan ends up in this upmarket Dehradun college, he immediately realizes that the blue-blooded blokes are different from the middle class boys like him and that hot wheels and girlfriends on the arm is what matters here the most. He frequently runs into the bratty Shreya (Ananya Panday), who leaves no opportunity to publically humiliate the seedha-saada Rohan. A win at the dance-off competition enrages Shreya even further, who hasn’t taken her defeat too graciously.
While there are singing, dancing, kabaddi and other competitions at college for students to prove their worth in, tensions are mounting between Manav (Aditya Seal), Shreya’s brother, the college bully, and Rohan. Also, there is the “Student of the Year” tag to be won. So whenever the two rivals come face-to-face, there is only one thing Rohan has to say to a brooding Manav, “din tera tha, par saal mera hoga.” And that is where things start to go downhill.
While ‘Student Of The Year’ was a bit bearable, which also happened to launch Varun Dhawan, Sidharth Malhotra and Alia Bhatt’s careers, ‘Student Of The Year 2’ is just intolerable. It lacks the pace and the depth and also the logic. No character is well etched out and there are no reasons for the protagonist and the so-called antagonist to lock horns at every given chance. Although winning the kabaddi championship (probably to highlight the need to play the desi game) as the last option at bringing glory to themselves looks good and all on the screen, but it could have been any other sport for that matter.
Flashy cars, grand, colourful sets, skimpily-clad girls, chiseled bodies of the boys, love triangles, fiery dialogues, charged up action scenes, peppy dance numbers are all part of the film, but sadly there is no story to propel the movie forward. It starts to float midway and eventually sinks beneath the illogical bunkum that is presented on the big screen for more than two hours. Even Alia Bhatt’s ‘Hook Up Song’ and Hollywood star Will Smith’s cameo in the ‘Jawaani Song’ do not work in favour of ‘SOTY 2’.
Tiger Shroff has added a few more emotions to his skill set but his dialogue delivery still falls flat. It is common knowledge that he is a pro at parkour, but showcasing that in a kabaddi match is not something everyone can easily digest. Newbies Tara Sutaria and Ananya Panday do not have much scope in the film, where boys take centre stage and the cameras are only busy capturing their masculinity. Despite the college being a co-ed, girls are only secondary and do not take the least interest in sports and games (how unrealistic from today’s standards!). Aditya Seal and Abhishek Bajaj fill in the gaps. Samir Soni as the principal looks out of place and so does Gul Panag as the coach.
All in all, the class of 2019 in ‘Student Of The Year 2’ is a total letdown.
Eventznu Rates SOTY 2: * ½
