Vadh 2 Review: Sanjay Mishra And Neena Gupta Bring Gravitas To A Sequel That Never Tightens The Noose

Vadh Movie Review: Back in 2022, Vadh, led by Sanjay Mishra and Neena Gupta, arrived quietly and left a thunderous impression. Its power lay not in spectacle but in the slow tightening of its moral noose, a simple, unassuming narrative that gripped you precisely because it felt lived-in and intimate. Fast forward to 2026, and we have Vadh 2. The cast largely returns, now joined by Kumud Mishra, Akshay Dogra, and Amitt K. Singh. The question, inevitably, is whether the sequel manages to summon the same haunting magic. The answer is conflicted. Vadh 2 retains the thematic skeleton of its predecessor and is sincere in its intent, but while it engages sporadically, the film as a whole settles into a strangely muted, almost listless experience.

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film opens on a note of brutal finality. A young woman, Manju Singh, is convicted of killing two of her relatives by smashing their heads with a steel tiffin, and is sentenced to 28 years in prison. From this stark beginning, the narrative leaps forward in time to the prison complex in Shivpuri. A new jail superintendent, Jai Prakash Singh (Kumud Mishra), takes charge. In an early exchange with his driver, he casually asks for his surname to identify caste, a seemingly throwaway moment that quietly establishes his worldview and moral temperament.

Within the women’s section of the prison, we are introduced to Manju Singh (Neena Gupta), who has clearly spent many years behind bars. She has adapted, survived, and even carved out a small economy for herself. Manju supplies fellow inmates with daily essentials, sourced through Shambhunath Mishra (Sanjay Mishra), a prison constable with whom she has developed an unspoken arrangement. He brings her goods; she provides him with fresh vegetables grown inside the prison complex. Shambhunath sells these outside to repay a loan he took to send his son abroad, a son who no longer returns his calls, a quiet, painful echo of the emotional wounds from the first film.

The same prison also houses Keshav, better known as Bhuri Bhaiya, the notorious and morally bankrupt brother of an MLA. His cruelty and hunger for dominance are chillingly established in a disturbing scene where he places two puppy dogs under the tyres of a prison van, crushing them without remorse. It is a moment that defines him in a single, horrifying stroke.

The narrative takes a turn when a new batch of inmates arrives, including Naina Kumari (Yogita Bihani), an innocent woman falsely implicated by a colleague for bank fraud. During a court transfer, Bhuri Bhaiya’s predatory gaze fixes itself on Naina. Inside the court premises, he even goes so far as to instruct her lawyer not to secure her bail, even though she could have walked free that very day.

Back inside the prison, Bhuri’s tyranny escalates. He brutally assaults an elderly inmate for the trivial act of washing clothes in his vicinity. Jai Prakash Singh witnesses the assault and orders Bhuri into solitary confinement. But power, as always, bends rules. Under pressure from his seniors, Jai Prakash is forced to release Bhuri. Humiliated and seething, Bhuri mocks and threatens the superintendent over a phone call. Jai Prakash, himself driven by ego and wounded authority, storms into the prison in the dead of night and thrashes Bhuri mercilessly before leaving.

The next morning, Bhuri is missing. With no sign of an escape or a body, Inspector Ateet Singh (Amitt K. Singh) is dispatched to Shivpuri to conduct an official inquiry. The film then settles into its investigative rhythm, following Ateet Singh as he questions those who were present on the night Bhuri vanished, attempting to piece together what truly happened. Whether the truth will surface, and at what cost, becomes the central mystery.

At a runtime of two hours and eleven minutes, Vadh 2 begins with promise but gradually succumbs to a sluggish screenplay and uneven pacing. What made Vadh linger was the deeply felt bond between Sanjay Mishra and Neena Gupta, an emotional tether that anchored the narrative. That connective tissue is sorely missing here.

There is a genuinely tender moment early on where Manju and Shambhunath speak across opposite sides of the prison complex. Shambhunath opens up about the ache of raising a son who has now abandoned him, and the quiet devastation of being forgotten. It is a beautifully written and performed exchange. Unfortunately, after this scene, the two characters barely interact for the rest of the film, severing the emotional lifeline that the story itself so carefully establishes.

The investigative track, too, struggles to generate urgency. Ateet Singh’s methods and interrogations feel familiar, especially in an era saturated with crime thrillers across films and web series. The predictability of the narrative further weakens the impact, as the audience can connect the dots well before the film does. Post-interval, the pacing tests patience, and despite not being excessively long, the film feels stretched. There are few moments that genuinely place you on edge. The climax, however, offers some redemption. The final twist injects a brief spark of intrigue and leaves you with a lingering sense of what the film could have been.

The antagonist, too, pales in comparison to the first film’s villain. Where the earlier antagonist felt terrifying in his ordinariness, this one slips too easily into familiar Hindi film tropes, diluting the threat.

Yet, for all its shortcomings, it is impossible to dismiss the honesty with which Vadh 2 has been made. The makers clearly strive to stay true to the moral and thematic universe of the original. Performances across the board are solid. Sanjay Mishra brings his trademark wounded humanity, Neena Gupta radiates quiet resilience, and Kumud Mishra inhabits his role with conviction. Amitt K. Singh, Shilpa Shukla as Rajini Shukla, Akshay Dogra as Keshav, and Yogita Bihani as Naina Kumari all deliver earnest performances that elevate the material where the writing falters.

Ultimately, Vadh 2 feels like a film that had the potential to surpass its predecessor but loses its way along the journey. For viewers who enjoy crime thrillers, it may still offer a passable watch, provided it is approached on its own terms and not measured relentlessly against the shadow of Vadh.