Ghayal Once Again | Bollywood Film Reviews

Making a sequel of a film is an old trend. Sometimes there is a genuine scope of taking the story forward from the point it left in the original movie. Sometimes the story have chance to look into the possible events which actually shaped the incidents, and hence we have prequels also. And sometimes the story itself is so long that the movie series has to be made on that.

Here are some examples:

These films are based on book series and usually represents the content in the linear manner.

These series are based on characters (include those which are based on the book series), usually there is little link to the content of the previous link and the main characters are found exploring another adventure.

These movie series came to existence based on the success of the first movie in the series. The story then has been crafted to link to the previous installment.

This is the only successful franchisee which have a prequel trilogy and a sequel trilogy. The latest installment in the series (which is 7th in the series) is Star Wars – – which also met with commercial success.

The matter of the fact is, sometimes there is genuine scope of exploring story from the point forward or backward. However, we often see the case when the movies are simply made to encash the success of the previous installment and there are little or no link to the previous movie. Dhoom, Hate Story etc. are such movies.

One need to understand that the viewers are smart enough to decide whether to go for the movie or not. So despite of whatever marketing claims are, we all know that Dhoom 3 is the weakest movie in the series.

Anyway, let us talk about Ghayal – Once Again; which is a sequel of the magnum opus Ghayal.

Book Plot:

Release from the Jail after completing his term as a prisoner, Ajay Mehra now runs a newspaper named Satyakam. He is having some disturbing memory flashbacks due to the events he suffered from. And, he have to continuously battle with it. He lost his wife Varsha and his beloved daughter in a mishap. Riya is a psychiatrist who befriends with Ajay and helps him unconditionally in his work.

The only goal of his life is to stand by the truth and expose those who are doing wrong. When law fails to nail them, Ajay (and his team) considers it as his duty to do the right thing. Ajay is well-respected in the society for his good work.

ACP Joe D’Souza is now retired and lives his life as an RTI activist with his wife. He often encounters threat and dangers, but he follows his path without any fear.

Raj Bansal is a calculative and cunning businessman. He is well connected in politics as well. In Mumbai he can do almost everything he wants to. He is in very good terms with Home minister Kaka Saheb. His son Kabir is a spoilt rich youth, who doesn’t think before doing anything. He does what he wants to, no matter what. And, yes, day by day he is getting out of control.

A B C and D are four young frinds who are enjoying their youth. Each of them have passion for different thing. And most importantly they all are true friends and stand by each other in good or bad.

ACP Joe D’Souza and a few other people got killed in a road accident. And, this incident makes the path for tall these characters cross with each other.
What happens later is the rest of the film.

Official Trailer:

There are a very few films which are sequels in true meaning. In that particular arena, Ghayal Once Again remains honest to its predecessor, Ghayal. It continues the story from the previous film. Flash back scenes use the footage from Ghayal effectively. In a scene where Ajay was talking to his wife about their to be child, the scene is captured from Ghayal and is dubbed with new dialogs.

Being the director of movie, Sunny controlled himself from the temptation to appear on the screen through out the movie. It is kind of a tough job. He rather lets the plot devloped properly and makes the dots in proper place, so they can be linked.

The story is quite good with the feelings of Deja Vu.

If we need to choose only one thing Sunny is fantastic at directing, it will be the way he directs scenes where the actors are in the road traffic. He had once such tremendous scene in his directorial debut Dillagi (which was in fact a good movie) and he came with a similar scene in this movie as well. Of course, he knows the craft pretty well and have many more attributes to follow. The most important thing for a director is to follow the script and improvise it in terms of execution. He does it well

The movie have emotional quotient as well, which works in favour of the movie. The action scenes are a mix of “pretty realistic” and “over the top” stuffs. Some such scenes are picturized brilliantly. There are many sequences which you love, for example “the chase in the mall”.

The background music of the movie is compelling. The cinematography is brilliant. The research team sure have spent time in finding some interesting locations for the movie.

Sunny’s own emotional side is quite visible in the film. We are wondering why people (including reviewers) are not talking about the way he paid a fantastic tribute to Satyakam film! Satyakam is one of the fantastic performances of Dharmendra for sure, and it is near to Sunny’s heart as well.

In terms of a famous dialog between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, there are scenes in Gahyal Once Again, where you think Sunny punches like a vegetarian! At this age he maintains his body and is believable in most of the part though.

The music album (or songs) needs to be a fantastic part of any Bollywood movie. Remember the famous song “Sochna Kya Jo Bhi Hoga Dekha Jayega” from Ghayal?!

You will feel the absence of good songs here for sure.

These days, the special effects aka SFX / VFX has to be very powerful to woo the audience. Despite of having it remarkable in many scenes, you will find it a kind of amateurish in many scenes for sure. The scene of fighting in a train could have been a master piece, if it have properly added special effects; and same we can say for the chopper scene too.

Also the way Raj Bansal is able to monitor the entire city of Mumbai looks quite unbelievable.

The movie is dependent on the protagonist, and Sunny Deol remains faithful to his role. He is convincing for sure. Manoj Joshi is a scene stealer (his character will remind you Mohile from Gahyal, at various places).

Narendra Jha as Raj Bansal and Abhilash Kumar as Kabir are two surprise gifts of this movie. They are both fantastic actors. It will be interesting to follow their journey in Bollywood. We are sure that if they get proper roles, they will leave a mark.

Om Puri, Nadira, Tisca and many others got a little scope here and they does what they need to, effectively.

All four young actors are convincing and they know what they are doing.

Overall a good movie where there are no unnecessary action scenes and no skin show. It is a challenge to make such film these days. You can feel that the film is made more through heart rather than the calculative mind. If you like the action dramas of 90s, you will surely enjoy it.

Which part of the movie you like the best? What is the most effective scene of the movie according to you? Is there anything you want to share about this movie or this article? Do not hesitate, go ahead and leave your comments below. And yes, do not forget to share this article with your friends over various social networks via Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus and others. And yes, you may like to subscribe to our RSS feeds and follow us on various Social networks to get latest updates for the site to land right in your mail box.