Starring: Irrfan, Jimmy Shergill, Mahie Gill, Soha Ali Khan
Directed by Tigmanshu Dhulia
Rating: ***
Saheb and Biwi are back, but in the company of a new gangster. And what a gangster he makes! Irrfan with his attitude, his langorous body lingo, his comic timing and intensity makes this film his own. Well, almost, because Jimmy Shergill also delivers a solid punch as the hard-boiled Saheb.
Tigmanshu Dhulia tells it straight. The biggest strength of the sequel are his fascinating characters and the actors who make them crackle with life. The film spends a good deal of time setting each of them up and showing us the web of complicated relations. There is Inderjit (Irrfan), who wants to settle a score with Aditya Pratap Singh (Jimmy), reclaim his lost family honour and has ambitions of a successful career in politics. Women get used as baits and pawns in their game but subvert it for personal gains too.
The story itself is not new. It’s about crumbling old royalty trying desperately to hold on to fading glory and seeking refuge in crime, business, politics and their attendant intrigues. Dhulia writes great lines and builds attention-grabbing, stand out scenes. The most hilarious is the one where Inderjit, posing as a journo, meets MLA Prabhu Tiwari (Rajeev Gupta) fiddling with a porn video on his laptop. This could have lapsed into pointless slapstick but stays bitingly black, Gupta matching Irrfan’s acting chops perfectly.
The second half gets predictable and protracted. Despite its flaws, SBGR is engaging and enjoyable.
