When the characters cry on screen, but you laugh, you know something is terribly wrong. But when you feel absolutely nothing, it has to be Andaaz 2. Banking on the name of the 2003 original starring Akshay Kumar, Priyanka Chopra and Lara Dutta, this one has all newcomers, none of whom have main character energy.
Andaaz 2, directed by Suneel Darshan, is a disappointing sequel lacking chemistry and a coherent plot.
What is the plot?
The story? There is no story. A guy falls in love with a girl, whose sister lusts after him too. She tries to separate the two, then inexplicably changes her mind, and it is suddenly a happy ending. Which leaves me questioning not how this film was made, but why. There is absolutely no connection to the original.
Aayush Kumar plays an aspiring musician who performs for an audience exactly once in the entire film, yet by the end, he has a contract worth a crore. The girl who falls in love with him (Akaisha Vats) would rather make out with him in a garage than go to the United States for higher studies. Natasha Fernandez, playing Akaisha’s rich sister, kisses the guy she likes on their very first drive.
Cliches abundant
This randomness and ridiculousness is Andaz 2. Suneel Darshan, once the maker of films like Jaanwar and the now meme-fied Mela, has clearly not kept up with the changing times, because this film feels stuck in the late 1990s, from its mediocre production value to its outdated dialogues. The age-old tropes are all here: ghar ki beti paraya dhan hoti hai, the father opposing his son’s music career, two girls falling in love with a man who is jobless, penniless and, more importantly, witless. Add to that an elder woman harassing a younger man, just for laughs. Haha.
It is the kind of plot that might have just about worked in the single-screen era, when audiences had limited choices and suspension of disbelief came cheap. In 2025, it feels laughably out of place. Watching it in an empty hall, I could almost hear the sound of my own regret echoing off the walls-- a soundtrack far more compelling than anything the film offered.
No one acts well here. The music by Nadeem Saifi (yes, of the Nadeem-Shravan duo) is surprisingly decent. The cinematography by Chetan Dholi is below average, and the leads are presented rather tackily.
In the end, Andaaz 2 is less a sequel and more a relic- a reminder of everything Bollywood should have left behind two decades ago. With zero chemistry, wafer-thin plotting and a theatre emptier than its screenplay, it is a film best remembered for proving that some names are better left in the past.
Rishabh Suri writes for the daily Entertainment & Lifestyle supplement HT City. From Bollywood to Hollywood, from Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam films, to OTT and television- he covers it all.
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