‘Vadh 2’ (2026) Movie Review - Sanjay Mishra and Neena Gupta Keep This Thin Sequel Afloat

Jaspal Singh Sandhu's Vadh 2 is a sequel that frequently cross-references its prequel. That 2022 crime drama was about a retired schoolteacher who kills—no, executes—a monster when he lays his dirty eyes on a young girl. The sequel, meanwhile, follows a prisoner who executes a monster when he lays his dirty eyes (and hands) on a young girl. There, Sanjay Mishra's Shambhunath Mishra took a loan to send his son to America and, as a result, became the target of a loan shark-cum-gangster. Here, Shambhunath is saddled with the same problem, with the only difference being that he isn't harassed by a loan shark (in both films, he expresses his disapproval over the name of his son's daughter). In Vadh, Saurabh Sachdeva played the gangster whose sole purpose was to provoke disgust in the audience. In Vadh 2, that function is assigned to Akshay Dogra's Keshav. During his introduction, Keshav picks up two puppies, places them near the wheels of a bus, and orders the driver to drive on. He also ogles an inmate, a 22-year-old woman named Naina (Yogita Bihani). Naina was also the name of the young child whom Sachdeva's Prajapati asks for one night while harassing Mishra's character in the first Vadh.

There are similarities even at a tonal level. The camera observes Shambhunath and Manju (Neena Gupta) lovingly and patiently when they spend time together. The same lens exudes discomfort in the company of Keshav. In Vadh, this discomfort was sustained and stretched for so long that the treatment felt exploitative at best. Vadh 2 avoids that pitfall by not lingering in the dirt; yet you can't help but feel that you're watching the 2022 film all over again, with the sequel merely tweaked here and there. One can argue that the new movie intends to comment on the repetitive nature of crookedness: change the setting, the people, the location—but the rot remains the same. In Vadh, the police officer was unable to save Shambhunath from the gangster, forcing the latter to take matters into his own hands. Similarly, the police officers in Vadh 2 fail to ensure Naina's safety inside the prison. She is not only wrongly accused; she is denied bail at the orders of a criminal and handed over to Keshav by none other than a policewoman (Shilpa Shukla). The Vadh films, then, are about a justice system crippled by corruption. Manav Vij's Shakti Singh was in cahoots with criminals in the first film, while Prakash Singh (Kumud Mishra) is a casteist here.

At the same time, Shakti had a trace of a moral compass, whereas Prakash absolutely refuses to bend before dons. This is Sandhu's way of introducing shades of grey on his canvas. The intentions are noble, but not complex. These grey areas are rendered thin and simplistic, deployed primarily in the service of narrative twists and turns. In Vadh, Shakti's bad-to-good transformation was clumsily telegraphed; the change felt contrived rather than organic. In Vadh 2, the moral corrective is handed to Inspector Ateet Singh (Amitt K. Singh), while Prakash receives his comeuppance. It's for this very punishment that Prakash is written as a casteist officer—a punishment that arrives like a surprising revelation. What this tells you about Sandhu is that his real interest lies in small, banal experiments. He dots his i's and crosses his t's like a diligent student. No wonder both Vadh films come across as self-contained, self-satisfied projects. They unfold inside an echo chamber—a notion made literal when the first film is seen playing on a phone in this sequel.

The opening music of Tom and Jerry becomes Shambhunath's ringtone, but there is no sense that the character watches cartoons or television, for that matter. One gathers that in his free time, he mostly sits around drinking alcohol. He is apparently interested in gardening and vegetables, but this trait exists purely for plot convenience (he hides a body in a bag filled with vegetables).

And what about Manju? She loses a significant portion of her life to a false accusation, yet we learn nothing about who she was before prison. Does she have a family, relatives, friends? Did anyone ever visit her? What kind of life did she imagine for herself before ending up behind bars? The only details Sandhu allows us are those that help connect narrative dots. As a result, Vadh 2 feels suffocating and lifeless. These films are not products of a cinematic vision; they emerge from tunnel vision. Sandhu wears blinkers before looking through his camera, arriving with narrow objectives and a narrow outlook. Without actors like Mishra and Gupta, the Vadh films would be utterly forgettable. These two supremely talented performers inject charm into predigested, prepackaged, preprocessed material. They help you stagger to the finish line—and they deserve films that can meet them where they stand.

Final Score- [5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times