Deadly-2 Movie Review

Lively!

Well, it’s now evident that Ravi Shrivatsa loves Bollywood underworld flicks. If Shrivatsa’s debut film, Deadly Soma was liberally inspired from RGV’s Satya, his new venture Deadly 2, has taken its bloody inspirations from another Bollywood gangster movie, Shootout at Lokhandwala.

Deadly 2 is highly entertaining if you like blood and gore, but it apes too many scenes from Shootout at Lokhandwala to give Ravi Shrivatsa complete credit for the same. The narration style of the film, where two cops narrate the stories of their various encounters, the scene where Adithya beats up an informer, the scene where Adithya meets Devaraj in a restaurant after Devaraj troubles his family, the scene where Adithya threatens his Dubai based boss, are all ‘inspired’ from Shootout at Lokhandwala. Adithya even dresses like Vivek Oberoi in Shootout at Lokhandwala and his mother Amrita Singh’s character is extended here in Kannada where Suhasini Maniratnam gets to kill a police officer at his own house.

And we almost felt she had a roguish grin in her eyes in this scene for getting to do something so different at this stage of her career when others of her age are content with playing doting mothers!

But this is not all blind copying by Ravi Shrivatsa. Whenever he gets a chance from copying, he cleverly mixes some interesting characters and scenes into the narrative to make the film lively. So, the rapist rowdy Nasru becomes Nazar and there is also a reference to his brothers, who are still in jail, who have sworn to kill inspector BK Shivaram who encountered Nasru. Syed Kirmani, the former Indian wicket keeper makes a guest appearance but he is woefully out of form on this new wicket. To add to that, Adithya murders a local cricket board president with the same bat presented by Syed Kirmani. Films are a whole different ball game Mr. Kirmani!

At this time, Ravi Shreevatsa’s fascination with Hindi underworld movies strikes again in the narrative. This time he copies a scene from RGV’s Shiva (not that old Shiva with Nagarjuna; the new one) where Adithya puts a nail into somebody’s head with a sledgehammer. The scene has come well, but it’s not original.

And unfortunately, whenever Ravi Shrivatsa tries to give something completely original, he turns up disasters like Madesha!

So, what is there for ladies among this bloodbath and mayhem? Nothing much really. There are no songs, the heroine doesn’t speak (she cannot) and you can hardly call Adithya running in market in his underwear an incentive for the ladies! Speaking of Adithya, he carries his form from Deadly Soma and gives up a very good performance. He has the height, the looks and the ability to make it big. Heroine Meghana Mudiyan has a limited role, but she does OK. Suhasini gets to cry and yell a lot and she still hold her ground.

But it’s Devaraj who steals the limelight as he did in Deadly Soma. The man hasn’t been used properly by our industry and he still has lot of acting in left in him. Also, credit to Ravi Shrivatsa for writing some really interesting characters such as Soma’s friends and making them act really well.

For the lovers of underworld films, Deadly 2 can be seriously engrossing, provided they have not already seen a lot of Hindi movies!

-Movie Review By Raju Shanbhag

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