‘Son of Sardaar 2’ review: A slog through thickets of lazy writing and tacky scenes

What is going on is always a valid question in Son of Sardaar 2, a standalone sequel to Son of Sardaar (2012) and an adaptation of the Turkish comedy Aile Arasında (2017). Vijay Kumar Arora’s film has the scattershot quality of the Golmaals and Dhamaals of yore, with a cameo by the Golmaal franchise director Rohit Shetty sealing the connection with anything-goes buffoonery.

Jassi (Ajay Devgn) travels from Punjab to England to meet his wife Dimple (Neeru Bajwa) but learns that she isn’t interested in him anymore. Jassi runs into a bunch of Pakistani women led by the feisty Rabia (Mrunal Thakur). Rabia, her stepdaughter Saba (Roshni Walia), Mehrish (Kubbra Sait) and transwoman Gul (Deepak Dobriyal) perform at weddings for a living.

Rabia bulldozes Jassi into posing as Saba’s father in order to impress Saba’s Sikh boyfriend Goggi (Sahil Mehta). Goggi’s father Raja (Ravi Kishan) is not only majorly into Sikh pride but also hates Pakistanis with a vengeance.

Valiant efforts are made to be zany, madcap, proudly loud, slapstick, irreverent. The best aspect of the screenplay by Jagdeep Singh Sidhu and Mohit Jain is the relaxed attitude towards India’s hated Muslim neighbours. Apart from this much-needed easing of cross-border tensions in the country that stirred the pot in the pre-Partition years, Son of...

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