'Kick 2' review: Not the double dose of entertainment that was promised

Cast: Ravi Teja, Rakul Preet, Brahmanandam, Ravi Kishan, Sanjay Mishra, Rajpal Yadav, Tanikella Bharani.

Director: Surender Reddy

What can you possibly say about a film that has everything going right for it in the first hour and then it snow dives into muddy crassitude?

Ravi Teja is introduced by Ravi Teja in the film. This is supposed to be the double dose of entertainment that ‘Kick’ provided. Teja from the first ‘Kick’ makes room for Robin Hood of ‘Kick 2’. Unquestionably, Robin Hood is quirkier thank his dad. He’s a self-centered doctor who doesn’t need much help for treatment if he gets into trouble. Such is his swag that he stitches himself up after he’s hit by a car and walks into the rowdy’s adda with a blood supplying pouch attached to his arm to teach him a lesson for the hit-and-run mishap. Beat that!

On his clear-goaled trip to India, he chances on Chaitra (Rakul Preet) who is narrating a story to Shankar Melkote that would make Sampoornesh Babu’s chest swell with pride. On listening to Robin Hood speak about himself, over the course of a song and a couple of dialogues, Chaitra falls head over heels in love with him. The audience erupted in laughter at a particular anecdote about how advantageous it is for men when women fall in love with them while men are still considering the prospects. I joined the echoes of laughter, of course. This and other ideas of humor with Brahmanandam as Pandit Ravi Teja are applaudable.

As far as the comedy goes, the trailers have revealed the truth. The film slips away from redemption as soon as the story moves to Bihar with the bag and baggage of Robin Hood. There’s just too much masala without the actual food. Ravi Kishan stares at the sky every time he appears and yells “Solomon Singh Thakur, son of God.” We know he’s an off-kilter baddie. But to push that point through our pitiable ears is menacing. It’s as ineffective as the directive used for computer graphics that accompany the pigeon shots. Take it easy, Ravi.

The village man Sanjay Mishra plays a half-boiled version of Brahmanandam and quietly scores. While, Ravi Teja’s lean-mean machine avatar works for action segments, his face-to-face romance with Rakul Preet is hit by a marquee of distance like their real ages. Teja looks easily a decade and a half older than the young Rakul.

Perhaps the film’s most brilliant scene is where Teja roughs up Ravi Kishan’s son and when Ravi tells him to stay for a week more in Bihar so that his son would recover and beat the hell out of him, Teja rushes to the hospital ward and twists and turns his son’s body and sets him right. In a jiffy, the son is ready for the big fight. History repeats and you know why Teja is Mass Maharaja.

Surender Reddy’s film majorly misses out on these counts. He crumples the film up into a harsh melody which isn’t what the sequel required.

Rating: 2/5