‘Mardaani’ (2014), in which Rani Mukerji played a fearless and tough cop named Shivani Shivaji Roy, managed to impress the audience with its gritty and realistic treatment of the subject it was dealing with. The film was a taut thriller and had solid performances by both Rani and Tahir Raj Bhasin who was playing the main antagonist. The film also served as the comeback for director Pradeep Sarkar who had a couple of failures in the form of ‘Laaga Chunari Mein Daag’ (2007) and ‘Lafangey Parindey’ (2010).
While ‘Mardaani’ focussed on the issue of human trafficking, ‘Mardaani 2’ delves in to another burning issue – women safety. In India and elsewhere, several women become victims of different kinds of sexual assault on a daily basis. The film is inspired from several real-life incidents. The identity of the villain is carefully concealed in the trailer. There is a fleeting shot of him towards the end of the trailer though. It would be interesting to find out who plays the main villain in the film.
Rani Mukerji seems to be in terrific form here. She has caught the ‘sur’ of her character very well again in the second instalment in the franchise. Gopi Puthran, who had written ‘Mardaani’, makes his debut as a director with this film.