'Border 2' Movie Review: Can Sunny Deol and Varun Dhawan Recreate the Magic of 1997? Partly!
- Sreeju Sudhakaran
- Jan 23
- 6 min read
When it comes to mainstream Bollywood cinema, there are a few films whose success is so definitive that they turn into templates - benchmarks that the industry keeps returning to, often with diminishing returns. For Indian westerns, there is Sholay; for sports dramas, Chak De! India; and for war films, unmistakably, Border. Ever since its release in 1997, Bollywood has repeatedly tried to recreate what made Border work - sometimes even with the same director - but rarely managed to capture its particular blend of scale, emotion, and lived-in camaraderie.
Even J.P. Dutta himself tried and fell short, twice. Now, it is Anurag Singh’s turn with Border 2. Given Singh’s earlier competently made Kesari, which itself carried a Border hangover, this was perhaps inevitable. Whether Border 2 works for you, however, depends entirely on what you are seeking. If you are here for unabashed fan service, nostalgic callbacks, and chest-thumping moments engineered for applause, the film largely delivers. If, on the other hand, you are expecting a war film that meaningfully engages with the costs of conflict - the human toll that the best war films inevitably grapple with - then it might be best to recalibrate your expectations and meet the film on its own, more populist terms.
Border 2 Movie Review - What's It About?
Like the original, Border 2 is set during the 1971 Indo-Pak war, with most of the action unfolding in Kashmir, while Ahan Shetty’s naval portions take place off the waters of Gujarat. Sunny Deol returns, this time not as Kuldip Singh, but as Lt Col Fateh Singh Kaler. The narrative’s other pillars are Varun Dhawan as Major Hoshiar Singh Dahiya from the Army, Diljit Dosanjh as Flying Officer Nirmal Jit Singh Sekhon from the Air Force, and Ahan Shetty as Lt Commander M. S. Rawat from the Navy.
Although these men belong to different wings of the armed forces, the film retrofits a shared past through a flashback that places them under one roof, with Kuldip Singh positioned as mentor and moral anchor. The friendship forged there is meant to bind the film’s parallel storylines. Once the war begins in earnest, however, their acts of valour play out separately, and not all of them survive to narrate their heroism.
Border 2 Movie Review - What We Thought of It
It would not be inaccurate to suggest that Border 2 was greenlit on the back of the blockbuster success of Gadar 2. That film, an inferior sequel by most critical measures, succeeded because it understood its audience and leaned heavily into nostalgia, replaying iconic moments with a knowing wink. In comparison, Border 2 is technically more polished, but it commits a similar creative harakiri. It smartly deploys homages for viewers primed to enjoy them, stages a handful of outrageously dramatic moments designed to elicit whistles and claps (including a particularly gory bazooka kill), and is buoyed by performances that are, on the whole, competent - occasionally even endearing.
And yet, judged purely as a war film, Border 2 remains frustratingly uneven. The screenplay lacks consistency, the editing cries out for restraint, and the film struggles to generate genuinely new highs of its own. Much of what it offers feels borrowed rather than earned.
One of the original Border’s greatest strengths was its relative narrative containment. By focusing on a single battalion facing overwhelming odds, the film allowed space for interpersonal dynamics to develop. The banter may have been cheesy, but it made the soldiers distinct and relatable, lending real emotional weight to their eventual sacrifices. Akshaye Khanna’s quiet, brave smile as his character meets his end remains haunting even today.
Border 2, by contrast, splits its attention across four fronts led by four heroes. This structural choice makes the film feel scattered and dilutes its emotional impact. The film attempts to compensate by focusing on the camaraderie within Hoshiar Singh’s unit, but the effect is uneven.
The flashback bonding between the protagonists is warm and effective, but the film noticeably sags during the family interludes. While such moments are meant to humanise the soldiers, they feel overly formulaic and only add to the bloat of a film that already exceeds the original’s runtime by a considerable margin. Recent war films like 120 Bahadur have faltered in similar ways.
The imbalance in character focus does not help either - Ahan Shetty’s character, in particular, feels underwritten, and Ananya Singh, playing his wife, is given very little to work with. Among the female characters, Mona Singh leaves the strongest impression, followed at some distance by Medha Rana opposite Varun Dhawan.
Where Border 2 fares relatively better is in its combat sequences, though even here the results are mixed. The action choreography oscillates between effective and underwhelming, and the VFX is disappointingly ordinary. The film rarely feels as grounded as the original Border, nor does it achieve the technical finesse expected of contemporary war cinema. The enemy officers are mounted like video-game mini-bosses - each hero gets one to vanquish - complete with exaggerated sneers and dialogue endings punctuated by “janaab” or “Inshallah”.
Ahan Shetty’s naval sequences are particularly problematic. Whether due to poorly masked green screens or unconvincing lighting, these scenes feel artificial and drain tension from what should have been high-stakes moments. Diljit Dosanjh’s air-force portions fare somewhat better visually, but even here, the sense of speed and exhilaration remains muted. This is unfortunate, as Dosanjh is genuinely likeable, especially in the flashback scenes.
The land warfare sequences are the film’s strongest suit, especially the stretch leading up to the interval, which is staged with reasonable effectiveness. Sunny Deol’s presence looms large here - his roar remains intact nearly three decades on, even if age has clearly caught up with his physicality. Slow motion and clever editing do their best to mask this, and his action scenes feel closer to his 1990s action persona than to a grounded war drama.
That said, several of the film’s nostalgic recalls work largely because of Deol. His phone call to an enemy major after capturing their communications centre is one such moment. The jingoism peaks whenever he is on screen, precisely as his fans expect, and some of his dialogues drew thunderous applause at my screening. Unsurprisingly, he is also handed the film’s most crowd-pleasing kill.
Varun Dhawan, however, emerges as a pleasant surprise. His portrayal of Major Hoshiar Singh is admirably restrained, and even his rousing speeches feel measured rather than overwrought. He is particularly effective in the climactic trench sequence. Unfortunately, the murky lighting and shaky camerawork in these scenes undermine their impact, presumably in an attempt to convey the grime of battle.
(Spoilers ahead.) Some of the death sequences feel derivative, with two major sacrifices occurring well before the third act, while others veer into excessive melodrama - most notably a scene involving a soldier sacrificing his life for a burning lamp. While such symbolism may have felt in tune with the original Border, it comes across as faintly absurd when enemy forces are actively closing in.
The same problem plagues certain recall moments. Ahan Shetty repeating the war chant once uttered by his father’s character in the original film feels like gratuitous fan service, especially given how sketchily his character is written. The radio transmission name-checking fallen heroes from Border is genuinely nostalgic, but the film’s final attempt to do fan-servicing for the same film, using a technology Bollywood has no moral scruples about, felt cheap. Once again, Border 2 proves unable to escape the long shadow of its predecessor.
This also extends to the music. The reused songs from Border retain their emotional pull, but the new numbers are merely serviceable. “Mitti Ke Bete”, which plays during the epilogue, is affecting in isolation, yet it does not come close to the aching poignancy of “Mere Dushman Mere Bhai” from Border, or even “Ek Saathi Aur Bhi” from LOC Kargil. In the end, Border 2 is a sequel that knows exactly whom it is playing to - but in doing so, it also exposes just how irreplaceable the original truly was.
Border 2 Movie Review - Should You Watch It or Not?
Border 2 fights hard to earn your applause with heavy artillery and heavier dialogues, but unlike the soldiers it depicts, the film rarely finds its footing on solid ground. Sunny Deol remains a force of nature and Varun Dhawan and Diljit Dosanjh deliver spirited performances. If you are in for fan-servicing moments, the film has plenty deliver; but as a war film, it only occasionally manages to rise beyond acceptability.
Comments