Maari 2 once again, is a battle to prove who is the bigger don. Dhanush as auto driver Maari returns to the area after eight years, forcing the police, and collector, played by a composed Varalaxmi Sarathkumar, to stay alert, reopen cases, and remain convinced that he’s the bad one.
If there was a doubt here, the mass scene where Maari tells the villain Beeja, “If you are bad, I am your dad,” confirms it. Tovino Thomas as Beeja, in dreadlocks and a black bandanna, who kills everyone he names, is threatened by Maari who has no fear of death.
And much like previous Maari, all this build-up is in the dialogues and cinematography.
Then in the trailer, there’s the Sai Pallavi-Dhanush romance almost like a different story. Unlike the previous Maari where the entrepreneur Sridevi, played by Kajal Aggarwal, was the opposite of Dhanush, Aarathu Anandhi played by Sai Pallavi is a lot like him. She’s also a rowdy and an auto driver and the only real threat to him in the area. He is threatened by her because she helps him realise his character – as a sensitive rowdy who is affectionate deep inside, and who loves her.
This is sweet, but it makes us wonder if her role ends there. In the previous Maari, Kajal Aggarwal’s role began interestingly, but got disappointing. She was relevant to the plot only because she was pretending to love Maari, while actually helping police officer Arjun catch him. In the end, she obviously realised the officer was the bad one, and fell in love with Maari for real. But Maari rejected her and returned to being a don in the area, and nothing changed.
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Maari 2 is a sequel to this, directed again by Balaji Mohan, and produced by Dhanush’s Wunderbar Films. A song from the movie called ‘Rowdy Baby’, released last week, and was our first glimpse into Sai Pallavi and Dhanush’s relationship. It was naughty and fun, in line with their romance in the trailer. But we don’t know how much of it is there in the story – how much of a difference she makes in the Maari Vs Beeja fight.
Maari 2 releases on December 21.
Watch the trailer here:
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