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Movie Review: Khuda Haafiz – Chapter 2 (2022)

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3.5 Stars (out of 4)

Buy Khuda Haafiz: Chapter 2 on DVD at Amazon

2020’s Khuda Haafiz presented action star Vidyut Jammwal in a different light, playing an ordinary man on a mission to rescue his kidnapped wife. The sequel Khuda Haafiz: Chapter 2 — Agni Pariksha shows the devastating consequences that the events of the first film have on both characters, propelling them to change in whole new ways.

The sequel picks up in 2008, one year after Jammwal’s Sameer rescued his wife Nargis (Shivaleeka Oberoi) from sex traffickers in the fictional Middle Eastern country of Noman. Getting her home safely wasn’t the end of their troubles as Sameer had hoped. Nargis is depressed and anxious, tired of the constant whispers about her ordeal by neighbors and coworkers. Sameer walks on eggshells, cautious not to upset Nargis but not sure how to fix her or their relationship.

In a well-meaning but misguided attempt to help Nargis open up emotionally, Sameer offers to look after his friend’s newly orphaned niece, 5-year-old Nandini (cute Riddhi Sharma). The girl’s presence initially has the opposite effect that Sameer wanted, reminding Nargis of the dreams that were taken from her in Noman. But when Nandini suffers a medical emergency, Nargis’s protective side takes over, and soon the three are living together as a happy family.

That joy doesn’t last. While heading home from school with a teenage neighbor named Seema (Anushka Marchande), the girls are kidnapped by three boys who’ve been stalking Seema. Their ringleader is Bacchu (Bodhisattva Sharma), grandson of a powerful family lead by matriarch Sheela Thakur (Sheeba Chaddha). The local police are either in cahoots with, or in fear of, Sheela. So, it becomes clear that Sameer will have to take matters into his own hands once again.

The public wants justice for the girls, thanks to sympathetic news coverage by reporter Ravi Kumar (Rajesh Tailang). Filmmaker Faruk Kabir — who wrote and directed both Khuda Haafiz movies — demonstrates how to properly include news reports in a film. Ravi is shown out in the field with his camera crew or recording in a studio. There are no annoying “man on the street” interviews or shots to make the audience feel as though they are watching a TV news report.

While the first film was based on a true story, the plot of the second is entirely Kabir’s own creation. This allows him to focus on character growth and the consequences of their actions. The result is a story that is exciting but grounded in reality. Unlike some Hollywood movies where superheroes destroy entire cities and get to go about their merry way, choices produce results that the characters in Khuda Haafiz – Chapter 2 have to deal with, good or bad.

Nargis was primarily acted upon in the first film, but here Oberoi gets to display real emotional range, carrying most of the story in the early stages. Nargis’s struggles are centered, as they should be. Only after Nandini is taken does she turn the reins over to Sameer.

As befits Jammwal’s martial arts background, Sameer’s character evolution is demonstrated through his fighting styles. In his first fight, he beats a callous police official in a blind rage, all fury and no finesse. This lands him in jail, where he is attacked by a gang that works for Sheela. He fights to survive in a manner that is still desperate but more calculating. When he’s released from prison, he’s a predator on the hunt, powerful and merciless.

The jail fight scene is particularly chilling because the prisoners’ improvised weapons — half of a pair of short scissors or a small piece of metal — require them to get very close to one another when attacking, stabbing in small bursts rather than taking long swipes from a distance. The sequence’s intimacy makes it especially terrifying.

Chaddha’s icy demeanor as Sheela is just as scary. At one point, she visits Nargis at her parents’ home, requesting a glass of milk from Nargis’s mother. After threatening Nargis and being met with defiance, Sheela drains the glass of milk in one go, sending the unambiguous message that she could make Nargis disappear just as easily. One would hardly imagine that drinking milk could be a menacing act, but Chaddha does it with aplomb.

Khuda Haafiz – Chapter 2 deals with a grim subject in a respectful way. While not taken from a single news story, Kabir distills the Indian public’s frustrated desire for justice in response to similar crimes into a fictional plot that feels cathartic but not pandering. Kabir treats his characters and the topic of crimes against women and girls with respect, and he trusts his audience to do the same.

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Movie Review: Siddharth (2013)

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Siddharth4 Stars (out of 4)

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Practicalities are often omitted from movies in order to save time. Characters never end a phone call with, “Good-bye.” A character jumps in a car and says, “Just drive,” and the driver does it without demanding to know where they are going.

Siddharth isn’t like that. It takes a familiar setup — a child goes missing, and the parents have to find him — and delves into how it would really play out for a family of limited means. Writer-director Richie Mehta paints a gripping and emotional picture by avoiding movie conveniences and emphasizing the details.

The title’s Siddharth (Irfan Khan) is a 12-year-old boy, son of Suman (Tannishtha Chatterjee) and Mahendra (Rajesh Tailang), a Delhi zipper repairman. The family is so desperate for money that Siddharth leaves school to work in a factory for a month, hopeful that his earnings will start a dowry fund for his little sister, Pinky (Khushi Mathur).

When Siddharth doesn’t return for Diwali as planned, Mahendra and Suman struggle to discover what happened to their son.

Wealthy movie dads like Mel Gibson’s character in Ransom or Liam Neeson’s in Taken can stop everything in order to search for their kids, but Mahendra doesn’t have that luxury. Bus tickets cost money that he doesn’t have, and that his friends and neighbors don’t have. While he’s searching for his son, who’s earning money to feed his wife and daughter?

That’s the difference between Siddharth and other missing child movies: the villain isn’t a person. The villain is poverty. If Mahendra had money, he could hire investigators and bribe informants and flit from place to place on a moment’s notice to look for Siddharth. If Mahendra had money, Siddharth wouldn’t have had to go to work in the first place.

Without a villain, the tension in Siddharth doesn’t feel acute. There’s no ticking clock. Yet there’s a growing sense of frustration that builds as the movie progresses. Mahendra and Suman calculate how many weeks it will take them to save the money for bus fare. The policewoman explains how hard it is to find a missing kid in a nation of a billion people without so much as a photograph of the boy. Mahendra asks every client if they’ve heard of a place call Dongri, his only lead to Siddharth’s whereabouts.

It’s a powerful illustration of how hard it is to live in poverty, particularly in a time of crisis. There’s no margin for error. Siddharth leaves because his family is broke, and it ends up costing them more than he would have made.

Mehta makes the audience’s frustration personal by introducing Siddharth with only a couple of seconds of screentime at the very start of the film. We don’t get a good enough look at him to join Mahendra in his search. Scanning crowd scenes is worthless, because every boy could be Siddharth.

Another fascinating thread within Siddharth is the impact education has on whole families. Pinky is more educated than either of her parents, and she’s only about six years old. She writes a letter for her illiterate mother, and she’s the only one in the house who can operate their cell phone. Upon learning that the phone has a camera, Mahendra asks Pinky how to use it so that he can take a photo of her, lest she go missing, too.

Siddharth reminded me of a terrific novel on a totally unrelated subject: The Martian by Andy Weir. Weir’s book presents in minute detail what life would be like for an astronaut left behind on Mars with virtually no resources. There are no aliens or space vampires in the book, just an endless series of ordinary events that could be fatal if one thing goes wrong. It’s fascinating.

Mehta’s film is no less fascinating. It allows the audience to come as close as they can to walking a mile in someone else’s shoes and illustrates the frustrating, devastating consequences of poverty. Siddharth is a triumph of storytelling.

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