Mirzapur 2 – Underwhelming but Watchable

Mirzapur 2, one of the most awaited sequels to hugely popular Mirzapur showcases the return of Guddu Pandit, to take revenge from Munna Tripathi. This Amazon Original directed by Directors Gurmmeet Singh & Mihir Desai this time has quite a few new additions in this new season.

Plot

Mirzapur 2 has Guddu Pandit (Ali Fazal), who was shot by Munna Tripathi (Dibyendu) is hiding and undergoing treatment. He along with Golu (Shweta Tripathi) is now determined for revenge and taking the control of Mirzapur from Tripathis.

Parallely, Sharad Shukla (Anjum Sharma), son of Ratishankar Shukla, the nemesis of Tripathis is also planning to take Mirzapur under his control after the death of his father. But as Kaleen Bhaiya (Pankaj Tripathi) and Munna are too strong to take on, he decides to join them and wait for his time.

With these, there is Inspector Maurya (Amit SIal), who after killings of his men in part 1, is bit mellowed down in his approach and is looking for his time to take on Tripathis and end the terror in the area. He joins hands with Rajesh Telang (Guddu’s father) to even stop Guddu from forming another gang.

The show in another subplot has Beena (Rasika Duggal), who is now pregnant and is being abused by her father in law Satyanand Tripathi (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) and is desperate for revenge. She also starts helping Guddu against Kaleen and Munna bhaiya.

The show introduces a few new characters, one is Robin (Priyanshu Painyuli) as Investment manager and Dimpy’s (Guddu’s sister) love interest. Also, another gang from Bihar, headed by Dadda (Liliput) and his twin sons (Vijay Verma) is introduced to make the proceedings engaging.

Another major addition is Madhuri Yadav (Isha Talvar) as the daughter of CM, who gets married to Munna Tripathi. The show also has Dibyendu Bhattacharya as the doctor treating Guddu Bhaiya.

The show starts with Guddu for his revenge, joining hands with Lala (Anil George) and trying to form alliances with Dadda Tyagi in Bihar to strengthen his strength. Munna and Guddu are waiting for opportunities to kill each other and so is Sharad waiting for his opportunities to get control of Mirzapur.

In between everything a lot keeps on happening in Mirzapur 2. Munna is married to Madhuri, daughter of CM, to make their position even stronger in Mirzapur. Beena is plotting against the Tripathis and helping Guddu, and Tyagi’s taking their stand of not allowing drugs to be peddled in their area, whereas their younger son falls in love with Golu hence helping her with drug business.

At the end, is Guddu able to kill Munna or vice versa, who gets the control of Mirzapur, and who wins in the battle of power is what Mirzapur 2 is all about.

Performances

The highlight of Mirzapur 2 is its ensemble starcast. A set of very potent actors with meaty roles is something that lifts this series to a high. With some great performances almost everyone justifies his role.

Pankaj Tripathi as Kaleen Bhaiya is calm yet menacing. Divyendu as Munna Bhaiya is in full form just like last season and is a notch above the others. Rasika Duggal is excellent and Kulbhushan Kharbanda as Babuji is dreadful as a lusty father in law.

Ali Fazal is much calm and composed in this season, and plays the part with finesse. Shweta Tripathi as Golu is ok. In the new additions Vijay Verma as twin Tyagi brothers is awesome and so is Isha Talvar as Madhuri Yadav, adding to the narrative.

Rajesh Telang’s role has been a short one and he is fine, so is Amit Sial as ACP Maurya. Priyanshu Painyuli as Robin is average, so is Anjum Sharma as Sharad Shukla. 

Special mention to Brahmaswaroop Mishra as Lalit and Dibyendu Bhattacharya as doctor, both of them have been excellent.

Also,a 5 minute revenge by Hemant Kapadia, as very famous Bh******le Chacha, if Mirzapur was released in theater, the scene would have been met with whistles and claps.

Hits

The show is gory and violent (and foul mouthed) as the last one and that sort of keeps the theme intact. The show starts with a bang and keeps on the pace and performances, twists and turns till the first 5 episodes.

The writing of the show is very good and has tried to cover almost all the subplots left open in season 1. The performance and dialogues delivered by Divyendu Sharma as Munna bhaiya make you smile every now and then, so will the expressions and scenes of Pankaj Trapathi.

The dialogues of Mirzapur 2 (just like season 1), though a lot of them are full of expletives are too good and keep the humour intact. The action scenes are gory but add to the narrative and expectations set for the series.

Every small character has been given importance and everyone has got his moments. The show explored almost every subplot and that is commendable.

Special mention to the scene when Munna and Guddu meet in the bar. That fight scene stands out because of sheer intensity and performance of both Fazal and Divyendu.

Misses

The pace of Mirzapur 2 drops in the second half, because of too many subplots and introduction of new characters and show sometimes drags. That may be to build potential for Season 3 but dilutes the impact first half created.

The track of Tyagi’s (Vijay Verma and Liliput), was explored but prematurely gets ended without much substance, which was disappointing given the talented actors involved, viewers would have expected much from them.

Even the character of Robin was not clearly defined, and did not fit in the narrative very well, hence ended up slowing the proceedings.

FFC Take

Though Mirzapur 2 is a decent, in fact a good enough season as a standalone one, it is underwhelming when compared to first season of Mirzapur. It had huge shoes to fill and high expectations to fulfill, which obviously was going to be too tough to meet.

Still, it tries its best, and despite the drag in the second half of season Mirzapur 2 is a decent watch and will anyways be viewed by everyone. So, finally Mirzapur 2 lacks in a few department, but is still better than most of the Indian content on web.