Deepanjana Pal
Sunny Deol spoke about feeling overwhelmed by the response to Gadar 2, admitted to not having watched either Gadar 2 or Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahani (2023). “Everybody is questioning too many things,” Deol grumbled at one point.
Gadar 2 is blunt about its humanism. Standing up to the crazed Major General Hamid Iqbal. Tara Singh tells his arch nemesis that India is unlike the state that the Pakistani army man champions.
Occasionally jingoistic and relentlessly patriotic, Gadar 2 is also unabashedly progressive where it counts. All its sloganeering is done using the Urdu word “zindabad”, and the controversial “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” isn’t uttered by anyone on screen.
The failure of films like Bheed (2023) and Afwaah (2023) are considered to be indicative of the cinema-goers’ unwillingness to engage with anything progressive.
It’s beyond the wisdom of mere mortals — let alone hapless film critics — to figure out the mysterious alchemy of what makes a film box office gold.