Stree 2 Review: Predictable Cash-Grab is Hilarious

Stree 2 Review | Leisurebyte

Director: Amar Kaushik

Date Created: 2024-08-15 00:00

Editor's Rating:
2.5

We are back in the small town of Chanderi, and this time, Vicky, his mysterious lover and his band of brothers must get together once more to fight off a headless ghost who is abducting women. He must face his fears and face this powerful entity to save his town and his loved ones from harm’s way. But, will he be able to finish his mission and find a way to stay together with his lover?

Written by Niren Bhatt, the film has a runtime of 149 minutes.

Stree 2 Review

While the first instalment of Stree, a 2018 horror-comedy film starring Rajkummar Rao and Shraddha Kapoor subverted expectations in a way that we were not expecting, the second instalment, Stree 2: Sarkate Ka Aatank, is a generic and formulaic venture that feels more like a fan-service cash grab than anything else.

Taking place once more in Chanderi town, where things are looking up for the women after the events of the first film, we see love-lorn Vicky daydreaming about his love interest Shraddha Kapoor, who remains unnamed even in the second film. This time around the stakes are higher, quite literally, and Vicky and his band of brothers get together to defeat the Sarkata in this “if genders were reversed” film.

The best thing about Stree was that it was a fun film full of laughs but had a natural commentary on social issues without going overboard on either front. Stree 2 foregoes both those fronts and feels more like a “middle film” that came into our lives to become the stepping stone of the inevitable spin-offs and extended universe films including Bhediya. There’s absolutely nothing new here – it’s stale and formulaic and there’s hardly any thrills. It’s extremely predictable, with Stree and Sarkata battling it out in some lava-filled Hell-esq place in an absolutely unironic kind of way.

The problem with Stree 2, however, is that there is no nuance. Whereas the restraint and subtlety were the best things about the previous movie, in this one, we dive straight into a misogynistic threat who hates women who don’t abide by the men in their lives. The dialogue that discusses this portion is just cringy and there’s no subtlety in that either. Everything is so over-the-top that you can’t help but want to skip to the next scene so it feels somewhat mysterious in some small way. The second half, particularly, was extremely underwhelming personally and I couldn’t believe that this is what the franchise has been reduced to.

Speaking of predictability, Akshay Kumar is here and the moment he came on screen I couldn’t help but exclaim “Of course”. From the moment Sarkata’s head bobs off in front of the smoker girl in the first scene, the movie gets you ready for predictability and it doesn’t veer off from that course for one minute.

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That being said, the comedy remains gold. This is clearly Rajkummar Rao’s film and he nails every minute of the runtime. Vicky continues to be a simple and warm-hearted man who only wants to fall in love with Kapoor’s mysterious character and his chemistry with his friends is infectious. Pankaj Tripathi and Abhishek Banerjee are simply fantastic and their comic timings are marvellous. Rudra Bhaiya was my favourite character in the last film and I am glad to say he remains so in this one as well. Regardless of the predictability of Stree 2, the core characters remain as great as you’d expect and no bad script, in my eyes, can take away from that.

Final Thoughts

Stree 2 is what it is – a predictable film made without any subtlety or nuance. But it’s the characters that make it memorable. It’s hilarious because Rajkummar Rao, Pankaj Tripathi and Abhishek Banerjee nail their scenes and have great chemistry together and that’s something to hold on to.

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