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My rating: destroy every copy – horrible – bad – whatever – flawed but enjoyable - good – great – amazing

I freely admit I was surprised.... or better to say SHOCKED at how much I enjoyed this one and how good it was. Funny thing is I remember liking Ghayal, but before I watched the new film I had to re-read my old review and watch several scene on youtube, for I admit the film did not stay in mind too much. With memories refreshed and the mood set, I dared to follow Sunny Deol down the path he so often trips on....

What I liked about the movie was that it truly was a sequel: drawing the basics from the original, not erasing them, not altering them and most importantly not rehashing them. Ajay Mehra has the same anger that drove him through the first Ghayal for his Filmfare trophy back in 1991, he gets emotional over his family and he has also not come out of his previous ordeal unscathed or healed. Not wearing the load of troubles on his own, Sunny Deol is ably helped by four young protagonists. These young ones manage a difficult task of winning you over in a very short time and without much of an introduction. What truly made me sit with my eyes glued to the screen was everything in between the start of the mad chase through the shopping mall practically to the big "characters are related" twist. Revelation of one of the girls being Ajay´s daughter was fine with me, no matter how filmy.

However right after that there was the CGI helicopter doing very un-helicopter-y things and shit, and it nearly completely destroyed any believability factor. But truly, Ghayal Once Again is fast-paced, straightforward and thrilling. Since none of the four young people is a "hero" or "heroine", you cannot predict whether or not they will die/be captured, and the scene in which they are desperately running from the bad guys, getting injured and severely hurt in the process, taxed my nerves quite a bit. Their pain also seemed so real I kept shedding tears from scene to scene, an occurrence quite rare in "let´s beat the shit out of the evil ones" kind of films. Even Ajay Mehra himself is not above pain and injuries. It was good to see flashbacks to the original films, including the lovely Meenakshi Sheshadri, and I had to wonder why the makers did not take enough trouble to even get her to redub that one dialog which is used.

As for the rest of the cast, the ever reliable Om Puri returns, and Soha Ali Khan reminds us she exists. I was relieved that any romantic angle between her and Sunny remained unexplored, indeed the relationship is presented in a way they may truly be just very good friends. If there is anything Sunny needs to stay clear off it´s romancing anyone under the age of 45 (I Love NY still gives me creeps and nightmares). Narendra Jha as the main villain is cool, ruthless and calculative, yet not above fear and other human emotions. He does a commendable job.

I am not a huge fan of Sunny Deol, but once in a while he comes up with stuff that makes me believe he is greatly underrated today. I had little to none faith in this project, but Sunny pulled it off more than well. Ghayal Once Again easily ranks among the better, if not the best, sequels Bollywood has churned out in past ten years.

Ghayal is a child of its time, a film about revenge that the bad guy brought upon himself with his own greed and ruination of our hero´s family. It can be also fitted among the then very popular slot of „innocent young man wronged by society goes bad“. While that to me personally will always be predominately Anil Kapoor´s kind of thing, Sunny Deol was the action God of the time, and those who doubt his acting abilities should watch Ghayal to know that Sunny, when he wants, can be very, very good (or put on another Santoshi´s masterpiece – Damini).

The beginning is slow, unhappening and frankly rather unrelated to the rest of the movie. We are introduced to Ajay (Sunny), an unwaxed and not-looking-like-a-tank amateur boxer (actually a pleasant relief and reminder that you don´t have to be one huge hairless pack of unnaturally looking abs to actually have the strength of ten other men – at least on the screen) with great love for his brother (Raj Babbar) and bhabhi (Moushmi Chatterjee) and running around the trees with his beautiful girlfriend Varsha (Meenakshi) to the beats of what in my childhood was known as Lambada. We finally get to the plot about thirty minutes later (those thity minutes are actually stuffed with one song after another because the makers realized there was no way they could squeeze them anywhere in the rest of the film), when Ajay´s brother goes missing.

Ajay looking for his brother uncovers some serious dirt hidden behind a good name of a millionaire Balwant Rai (Amrish Puri FTW), and after being denied any help by the corrupted police and a series of very unfortunate events he finds himself in jail for the murder of the very brother he tried to save and with his dearly beloved sister-in-law committing suicide. It is time for revenge.

Once past the long start, the movie keeps an even pace and brings one happening after another without wasting the time anywhere (least of all on Sunny-Meenakshi love story). Action is good and even though there will always be liberties taken in films, it is not the typical Bollywood over the top beat up. Ghayal, in many ways, feels realistic, although, as many other movies of its kind, could be viewed as way too optimistic about reformation of the criminals and keeping the righteousness in mind, that actually has to be pretty messed up due to serious reasons. Same kind of doubt needs to be given to honest policeman Om Puri, who is apparently a great investigator, yet has a shock of his life when he realizes there might be bugs in how the system works. I could have enjoyed more of bonding between the prisoners, who later do not hesitate to give their lives for what, quite frankly, is not at all their thing.

Still, Ghayal is a good action flick and Sunny Deol in the lead delivers a fine performance, not short of his trademark abuses. There is intensity to his dialogues and his body language says everything. Meenakshi Sheshadri is completely wasted, even Moushmi Chatterjee as Sunny´s sister-in-law has a better, more complex role. Meenakshi is in the film just for Sunny to have a girlfriend (like the right Bollywood hero does) and the songs, but not even her wonderful dancing skills are used. Pity. I suppose Rajkumar Santoshi just really wanted her in the film, after all, didn´t he have that infamous obsession with her for years? I can´t say I blame him....