Banner: Excel Entertainment
Producer: Farhan Akhtar & Ritesh Sidhwani
Director: Shujaat Saudagar
Star Cast: Farhan Akhtar, Prachi Desai, Shraddha Kapoor, Arjun Rampal, Purab Kohli
Shashank Arora, Shahana Goswami, Kumud Mishra et al
Music: Shankar – Ehsaan – Loy
Debutant director Shujaat Saudagar has aimlessly decided to carry forward the torch of the prequel Rock On but with no particular destination in sight. The prequel was at least entertaining but the sequel Rock On 2 tests your patience beyond endurance limit. Need anything more be said on this front?
The scripted scenario of Rock On 2 starts off with the voiceover narration of ‘KD’ aka Killer Drummer aka Kedar Zaveri (Purab Kohli). The story then mirrors upon the distances covered by Magik band’s members from the prequel till today. Aditya Shroff aka Adi (Farhan Akhtar) gets settled in Shillong to lead an isolated life as “repentance” over a certain mistake. It is here that he finds peace by running his self – initiated “Farmers Co-operative” and a school for the poor children. Even though “Farmers’ Co-operative” works selflessly towards the benefits of the farmers, it just does not go well with the local Governing officer of that area. On the other hand, Joseph Mascarenhas aka Joe (Arjun Rampal) becomes a successful entrepreneur as well as a judge in one of the TV reality shows. One day, on the eve of Adi’s birthday, the entire “Magik” team springs up a surprise by paying him a visit in the North East to celebrate his birthday. Despite the happy mood, there looms an atmosphere of tension, anger, repentance & anxiety amidst everyone. One fine day, “Magik” sees the inclusion of a struggling musician Uday (Shashank Arora) along with Jiah Sharma (Shraddha Kapoor) as its new members. On the eve of the performance, Jiah chickens out on stage itself and is unable to perform because of her father’s resistance to western music. On the other hand, Adi’s adopted village in Shillong gets gutted down due to forest fire. And the money given by the Central Government for the welfare aid of the affected farmers gets gulped down by a corrupt Government officer in Shillong. This is when Adi & his rock band plan to organise a rock concert in Shillong in order to highlight the plight of the helpless villagers.
The man who had gained ample recognition in the ad world has suddenly lost all interest in the entire proceedings of Rock On 2. Yes director Shujaat Saudagar’s non – directorial skills is evident from the fact that he has literally & directorially sleep walked through the entire duration of the film. In short Rock On 2 has confusions galore and it meanders pointlessly from “The Start” to “The End”.
Performance wise Farhan Akhtar indeed tries his level best to get the entire praising action focussed on him but totally in vain. Arjun Rampal simply seems to have wasted his little bit of talented energy on a non – de script movie and come to think of it he had bagged a National Award for his perfect characterisation in the prequel tItled Rock. On. Purab Kohli tries to bring in some genuine emotion, but, because he barely gets any space, his attempts go wasted. On the other hand, there’s Shraddha Kapoor, who looks endlessly lost in the film. She never gets a grip of her poorly written character Jiah, who is just wandering around in the film. While the rest of the actors like Shashank Arora, Prachi Desai, Shahana Goswami & Kumud Mishra also barely manage to make their presence felt.
Tail Piece: Sadly enough Rock On 2 has no story, no good music and not even an iota entertainment value. Ultimately speaking the film will prove to be an absolute disaster at the Box – Office turnstiles.
