OMG 2 Movie Review

Director: Amit Rai

Cast: Akshay Kumar, Pankaj Tripathi, Yami Gautam Dhar, Govind Namdev, Arun Govil

Run-time: 156 minutes

Storyline: A divine emissary, played by Akshay Kumar, helps a distressed father win a defamation suit against his son’s school in court

OMG 2 follows up OMG – Oh My God!, a 2012 film that satirised the sham of organized religion and starred Akshay Kumar, Paresh Rawal, and Mithun Chakraborty. Rawal and Chakraborty — former parliamentarians both — have dropped off from the sequel; only Kumar lingers on, as does the brave Govind Namdev.

The focus of the new film is not religion but sex education in schools, which explains why the makers had sought a UA certificate. The censor board, in its wisdom, ordered a bunch of changes and granted it an ‘A’ (Adult) rating. It also reportedly had Kumar’s character modified from Lord Shiva to a sort of ‘messenger’ of God (there is already a different franchise by that name, featuring a convicted felon).

OMG 2: Script Analysis

The first part was released with the solid backing of Bhavesh Mandalia’s Gujarati play Kanji Virudh Kanji & Billy Connolly’s film The Man Who Sued God. Umesh Shukla baked this brilliant concept of an ordinary atheist trying to sue God for the ‘act of god’. This time things take a turn in which Lord Shiva’s devotee helps his favourite devotee not just win a case but also has the pressure of reminding people that m*sturbation is a healthy act.

The conflict is more real and it hits home mostly. Mostly because it loses the balance at times and things get too convenient to be true. One such case is the way Lord Shiva’s devotee’s character involvement with Kanji’s life is way weaker than what it was in Umesh Shukla’s film. Now, that might be because it’s the issue that plays the anchor here making the film strong and weak while helping and hurting it. The super interesting debates in the courtroom are laid on a weak base of building the conflict by Writer-Director Amit Rai. The defense is not that strong and comes across as preachy in the answer to Kanji’s well-thought attacks.

It preaches how Sanatan Dharma has been astoundingly modern for ages & how we should do everything possible to keep things as they’re intended to be also shedding light on how sex education is important for the betterment of society. How many Padmaavats more before we decide to modify how the censoring scissor works on our films?

OMG 2: Star Performance

Pankaj Tripathi proves how it is possible to not only fill the shoes of a flawless performer but also walk in swag while owning those kicks. Tripathi adds his magic which doesn’t let you remember that there has been a Kanji before. It also is because of the well-founded character sketch that he gets to do things in his way while keeping the soul of the character alive. There’s a scene in which he bows down to a sex worker and that’s exactly what we should do to the actor in him.

Yami Gautam does her best but she isn’t as lucky as Pankaj when it goes to having a solid backing of the script. She’s at the receiving end getting dumbed down every single time without letting her build a substantial defense. She’s the famous-yet-losing lawyer but flourishes in the conversational scenes with Pankaj going neck-to-neck with him. Yami is staunch, Kamini is not.

Akshay Kumar’s god-like avatar isn’t as involved but lends the right support to the protagonist. His connection with Kanji is one of the main reasons why to pick the original OMG over this on any given day. The innocence of Lord Krishna is replaced with the omniscient nature of Lord Shiva and he has played both equally well. He’s so on-point that you’d want more of his sequences with Kanji Bhai.

Govind Namdeo, Arun Govil aren’t as strong as the supporting cast we saw in the prequel and are just about adequate. Pavan Malhotra gets his moments to shine and he grabs each and every one of them. The actor playing Pranlal Mutho is hilarious and he deserved more screen presence.

OMG 2: Direction, Music

Amit Rai takes the easiest route to execute the script. Apart from the subject that’s sensitive, not a single risk has been taken to make the film look and feel better than what it is. Some visual effects will take you back to the days of using Microsoft Paint.

The background score is so bland that it doesn’t help a single scene. The ‘damru’ bgm on Akshay’s character has been repeated throughout. None of the songs click.

OMG 2: Conclusion

All said and done, this film is brilliant in the ‘must-talk-about’ concept which tries to achieve things conveniently. I had all the plans to rate this a 3/5 but Akshay Kumar & team’s courage to serve a sensitive topic in an entertaining way deserves a .5 more for the vision.