Judwaa (1997) wasn’t a great film, still many of us celebrated the news of David Dhawan making its remake simply because of the nostalgia value attached to the Salman Khan-starrer. Many of us remember dancing to the film’s iconic songs and, of course, Salman’s antics. David Dhawan, as he remade the film with son Dhawan in the lead, knew the original’s strengths — Judwaa 2 is designed primarily as a musical and starts spouting cheesy one-liners right from the word go.
The trailer showed Varun Dhawan trying to fit into Salman’s big shoes because the original worked mostly because of the superstar and a solid pre-release buzz. Though Varun Dhawan tried to imitate the typical Govinda-Salman Khan way of comedy in Main Tera Hero (2014), but he didn’t have to face any legacy challenge there.
Judwaa 2 requires him to do what Salman Khan did in the previous film, and something more to stamp his authority, in case David Dhawan decides to continue the franchise.
Varun reprises the roles of Raja and Prem but Taapsee but Jacqueline aren’t called Mala and Rupa like Karisma and Rambha.
Prem and Raja are twins who are separated at birth. While one grows up in Mumbai, the other lives in London. As expected, one of them is street smart while the other is bit of a nerd.
The basic premise of Judwaa 2 is the same — Prem and Raja don’t know each other, but they are lookalikes. In special circumstances, they start to behave like each other which means if one of them is beating someone up, the other will also start moving his hands in the same fashion.
Stupid as it may sound, but this is what worked in Judwaa. And of course, some weirdly catchy tunes by Anu Malik and slapstick comedy contributed to it.
Varun Dhawan seems to be in the groove and appears to understand his father’s style of filmmaking. Taapsee and Jacqueline try to look the part in this mad caper and their work is likely to get more attention as the film progresses.
