I would have liked the headline for this review to be more inventive, but for a film like Singham Again, it is already way too nuanced. The fifth installment of Rohit Shetty’s overblown, hyper-jingoistic, deeply problematic Cop Universe is a test of how many times you can watch Ajay Devgn walk in slow motion.
It’s also a masterclass in how to cheapen mythology that you are trying so hard to glorify. It is 144 minutes of elaborate entries of six superstars walking, fighting, and blowing up cars stitched together to a deafening background score that repeats what’s happening on screen. It takes real confidence and talent to rope in biggies such as Devgn, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Ranveer Singh, Deepika Padukone, Akshay Kumar, and Tiger Shroff to make a film that’s an absolute snoozefest with zero entertainment value.
For the entirety of Singham Again, I couldn’t fathom how a movie written by nine people can suffer from such an acute lack of imagination and focus. Shetty’s iteration of the Ramayana, the film uses it as a debilitating crutch. Bajirao Singham’s wife Avni (Kapoor Khan), who is in the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, is helming a stage production of the epic. Before long, what happens on the stage begins to mirror Singham’s real life.
On cue and without rhyme or reason, heroes of Shetty’s cop universe take up the roles forced on them by the contrived narrative. Of course, Singham (Devgn) and Avni are Rama and Sita. New entrant Satya (Tiger Shroff) is saddled with being Lakshmana, Simmba (Ranveer Singh) turns into Hanuman, Sooryavanshi is Garuda (at this point you stop questioning). Another new addition, Shakti Shetty (Deepika Padukone) is Sugriva, I think.
All of them are on a mission to help Singham rescue Sita. My bad, I mean Avni. But it’s ridiculous the amount of time they while away in the process. Their actions are so unfocused that Avni gets abducted not once but twice. Instead of focusing on her, they seem to be proponents of #AllLivesMatter. It’s great but it doesn’t make for compelling cinema. In the middle of what should have been a high-on-adrenaline chase, they even find the time to visit holy sites and try to convince you that Ramayana is not mythology but history.
Since no version of the Ramayana—no matter how offensive or convoluted—can exist without Ravana, there’s one here too. It’s Shetty trying to give Arjun Kapoor’s dying career a new lease of life by presenting the possibility of him as a dreaded antagonist. Kapoor isn’t all that bad but he is entirely ineffective as Ravana. The film builds him up deliciously as a menacing demon. He gets a compelling introduction scene but that’s about it. Forget being dangerous, he ends up caring more for Avni than all the cop-heroes put together.
As for the big battle, you wait for it but it never happens. The climactic action sequence is a blur of guns, helicopters, and swirling cars. So much ammunition and yet no thrill. In fact, there hasn’t been a more vanilla, anti-climactic end of a villain in Hindi cinema.
I’m tempted to discuss Shetty’s seriously troubling understanding of what it means to love your nation but five films down, you are already keenly aware of it. Maybe you agree with his chest-thumping politics and even enjoy him severely underestimating the audience’s intelligence. Nothing else can explain his inherent need to underline, pronounce, and repeat everything over and over and him putting in gargantuan amounts of money to produce utter, absolute trash.
I paid to watch this film from my own pocket. It was the morning after Diwali. I want my time and money back.