Movie Review - 'Rock On 2' - Exciting Title, Boring Narrative

Rating: 2/5

When you name your film Rock On 2, the film needs to, well, Rock On!!!!! Now that's the bare minimum expectation from a film where the first part had managed to strike a cord with the target audience in urban India at the least. However, it is nothing short of a disappointment when instead of rocking, it turns out to be an ultra boring affair. Seriously, what was the entire team behind the second part thinking when it came together to come up with this mishmash of an affair. The film, which had so much potential to actually make for a compelling watch, makes you lose interest in it within first 20 minutes itself and from that point on, there is no respite whatsoever.

The film fails at the very characterisation stage itself. One wonders how to actually empathize with the character of Farhan Akhtar who leaves his wife (Prachi Desai) and son behind in Mumbai to settle in a Meghalaya village while taking care of absolute strangers. There is a motive shown behind it but the justification is just not there to make one actually believe in the situation.

Moreover, the film fails in actually bringing to fore the very concept of a band affair. Instead of telling everyone's story, this time around the focus is entirely in Farhan Akhtar with Shraddha Kapoor added to the band. Arjun Rampal and Purab Kohli are there but strictly peripheral, which is a sad state of affairs.

Sad! Well, this is how the entire narrative of the film actually is without any euphoric feel whatsoever. When a film carries the legacy of Rock On, it at least needs to have some highpoint at the least. Here, the film stays low, whether in terms of the proceedings in lives of the characters, the treatment that director Shujaat Saudagar brings or the mood that is prominent right through the narrative. It make you feel like a depressing film is on display and gradually, you sink deep into your seat wondering if there would be any respite whatsoever.

The film inherently plays on as a drama and the only time where it actually catches your attention is just before and after the interval point. The character of a struggling singer is what in fact works the most in the film and that's an irony when he doesn't even feature in the main cast. You don't really care either for Farhan or Shraddha and this is where the film loses its biggest battle as the very core goes missing. What is even more disappointing is the fact that the best performer in the film, Arjun Rampal, has very little screen time. It is to his credit that whenever he gets a meaty scene, he makes it his own and comes up trumps.