Awarapan 2

The thing about nostalgia is that it only works in retrospect. Before getting on with Awarapan 2, I rewatched the 2007 original. The Mohit Suri moper might seem too emo for today but its gloom came from a genuine place of trauma. Criminal and atheist Shivam Pandit (Emraan Hashmi) once fell in love with Aaliyah (Shriya Saran). He was taken by her devotion towards her Allah. He had found somebody to live for, to believe in. But then she was taken away from him, by a bullet that had his name on it. He then walked, lost and listless, on the sidewalks of an unnamed South Asian town, in trenchcoats as life passed by him. Every young guy who had loved and lost felt Shivam’s angst. Every young guy who wanted to feel Shivam’s angst listened to the songs. Heartbreak was now cooler than falling in love. Sadness was aspirational. The angry young man had gone international and he had Mustafa Zahid as his wailing voice.

Awarapan 2 is a continuation of Awarapan (2007). Shivam Pandit (Emraan Hashmi) is miraculously saved despite being shot several times after the end of the first film. The second movie continues years later when he is doing an odd job in a town in Rajasthan. He is still mourning the death of Aaliyah (Shriya Saran), who he dearly loved and regularly visits her grave.

Some films return because they have a story left to tell. Others return because they want to revisit a memory. Awarapan 2 sits somewhere in between—revisiting a 2007 film that underperformed theatrically but slowly acquired a second life on television, streaming platforms and through Emraan Hashmi’s enduring image as Shivam Pandit. Nearly two decades later, the sequel continues that story while also serving as a re-entry into its mood.

Before debating on the yays and nays of Awarapan 2, an undeniable fact has to be acknowledged: Awarapan is a case study. A box-office bomb on release a year short of two decades ago, the film ended up last in a three-way clash at the box office in end-June 2007, lagging behind even Himesh Reshammiya’s Aap Kaa Surroor. At a time when Emraan Hashmi was bolstered/ burdened by the ‘Serial Kisser’ tag, thanks to his lip-scapades on screen, the Mohit Suri film gave us a brooding, silent leading man, a gangster lamenting the loss of his love and seeking redemption by rescuing a damsel in distress. My review, written on release day, had even mentioned how a non-kissing Emraan Hashmi was no fun, words that I have learnt to regret in retrospect. The film, despite its moments and its music, didn’t work.

There is something about watching Emraan Hashmi on the big screen. Whether he has short hair or long hair, the camera seems to love him, and he has that rare intensity that makes you want to keep watching. Awarapan 2 works largely because of him. The film begins with Shivam (Emraan Hashmi) finding an abandoned little girl in a graveyard. This leads him to fight a child trafficking racket in Bangkok. It’s a fairly straightforward action drama, and strangely, it feels like a film from the era when Awarapan originally released in 2007. But somehow, it works.

Nearly two decades after dying quite unambiguously at the end of the 2007 release Awarapan — they even held a memorial for him (in Pakistan!) — the ‘selfless angel’ of a gangster Shivam Pandit (played by Emraan Hashmi) is back in Awarapan 2. The new movie is designed almost exclusively for Hashmi’s cult fanbase and the odd passer-by with nothing better to do at the multiplex. Remember, the first Awarapan was a flop; it gained a following thanks to multiple reruns on cable and Pritam’s evergreen music album. This time around, directing duties have been handed over to Nitin Kakkar, who simply doesn’t have the command over such material that original filmmaker Mohit Suri did.

Shivam Pandit, the straggly-haired shooter with a golden heart, is back. And it would seem, miraculously, that nothing much has changed between the 2007 Awarapan and this sequel, which doesn’t stray far from the thematic palette of the original, keeping the lead actor intact. It’s yesterday once more. Emraan Hashmi is clearly older. But his hair is as straggly. He is as much a wounded hero, a role Hashmi owns, as he was back in the day. And he is as lethal, which is a good thing because he is up against a new set of mobsters, gun-toting henchmen, helpless young women, as he goes about looking for a little girl in the clutches of a gang of human traffickers.