'Student Of The Year 2' review: Tiger Shroff impresses in a shallow, glossy, problematic film
Tara Sutaria, Tiger Shroff and Ananya Panday in stills from 'Student Of The Year 2'. (Image via Youtube/Dharma Productions)
Filmmaker Punit Malhotra's film 'Student of The Year 2' may want you to believe that the film is based in the present day but quite honestly, the plot is straight out of the 90s era wherein the garb of a campus-romance Bollywood managed to sell to the viewer a whole lot of lies about actual college life.And that's not even the main problem of the film
Set in Mussoorie and Dehradun, the film practically takes on the same milieu of the 2012 film 'Student Of The Year' complete with gloss and illogical storyline. Tiger Shroff plays Rohan part of Pishori Lal Chaman Lal College aspiring to be part of the coveted, uppity St Teresa's where his girlfriend Mridula aka Mia (Tara Sutaria) studies. It's a college for the rich kids, where even the security guard looks down at outsiders. The hilly town is also gearing up for the inter-college tournament called the Dignity Cup which has been won for the past years by of course the college of the rich kids.
Amid preparations and pep talks, Rohan gets a seat in St. Teresa's on sports scholarship mid-term. Don't ask how it's possible for anyone to go to another college in the third year that too mid-term but logic is not what the makers are selling in this film. Instead, they are endorsing a make-believe world where the students wear uniform arbitrarily, where the main battle is always amongst the boys and where students prepare year long not for the final exams but for a kabaddi match that will lead one of them to win the coveted 'Student Of The Year' award.
A 29-year-old Shroff - with triceps and biceps- is passed off as a college student in a role that, like most of other Shroff's previous films- is tailor-made for him. And the actor does justice to his character. Why won't he? He gets to showcase his dancing skills, there is ample scope for him to show of his ability to perform stunts, with fight scenes put in just so that the leading men get to flex their muscles and go shirtless if need be. Heck, even the kabaddi match is re-imagined withaerial flips and jumps- something that perhaps the age-old Indian game has never seen before. Of the cast, Shroff is the only popular star and the crowd-puller and he doesn't disappoint. Also read:Tiger Shroff on his action-hero image: Glad that Bollywood stereotypes its actors
The other actor who impresses is Aditya Seal. Remember the young boy in 'Chhoti Si Ek Love STory'? He has now grown up and holds his own in a stereotypical role of a rich boy who doesn't like to lose anything. Seal and Shroff together pull off most of the film with their dilaogue baazi, muscles, looks and well, acting.
The girls- Ananya Panday and Tara Sutaria- make their debut in this film. Panday gets a better-defined role and thus shines whereas Sutaria struggles in her sketchy character. Both have immense screen presence though but the film is not really about them, it is about the men. Which is perhaps the main problem with the film.
Even if we keep the prequel as a yardstick(which is not saying much about the film anyway), the women are so poorly represented in the entire plot that it is jarring after a point of time. Only men's team compete for the final round of 'Dignity Student Of The Year' and women stand in the corner, look pretty and cheer for the man they love. One could argue that the prequel also showed two men competing for the final round but at least there- women took part and got disqualified eventually. But in Punit Malhotra's world, the only ambition that Panday and Sutaria's characters have is to win the dancer's trophy. No other woman seems interested in sports. They also gave token representation to LGBTQ community through Gul Panag's character but that seems irrelevant to the plot.
If at all SOTY 2 works it's because of Shroff's mind-numbing aerial acts and Dharma gloss that tries to cover up all the problems in the story. But after a point of time, the sheen also comes off leaving you feeling that you know this story too well- after all, a bunch of us have grown up watching and idolizing Mansoor Khan's 'Jo Jeeta Wahi Sikander' which had a similar storyline.
Watch it if you are a hardcore Dharma fan, watch it for Shroff and Seal. But you will be left exasperated because of the predictability after a point of time.
