Sardar 2

The first half of Sardar 2 may seem familiar, but at least it commits to the kind of spy thriller it wants to be. There’s a lofty idea in there about a Japanese-made bioweapon that’s being kept secret by the Indian Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), and there’s a thrilling flashback that gives you the origins of how this weapon got to India in the first place. Set predominantly in the 1980s, the film sees Bose (Karthi), or Sardar, navigating the complexities of this international mission, and we also get a series of Mission: Impossible-style action set pieces that cover everything from the back of an airplane to the front of a Japanese bullet train.

Sardar, directed by PS Mithran, gave Tamil cinema a rooted spy character in 2022, well before Dhurandhar made the genre fashionable. Four years later, Sardar (Karthi) — who swears by the line, “Once a spy, always a spy” — returns with a shot at correcting a mistake that cost thousands of lives. The first film ended with Bose, aka Sardar, accepting his fate as a branded terrorist despite never committing espionage. His son Viji, inducted into RAW, has since been sidelined into a dummy unit handling no cases of consequence. Sardar 2 hands him a chance to prove himself — just as a bigger threat surfaces. What brings Sardar out of exile? Can father and son join forces against Black Dagger, a mercenary outfit endangering 140 crore people? The film spends a patient three hours answering these questions.