Khuda Haafiz Chapter 2 proves Vidyut Jammwal is ready for the big leagues

Action movie star Vidyut Jammwal’s latest, Khuda Haafiz Chapter 2: Agni Pariksha, written and directed by Faruk Kabir, was released in theatres earlier today. Jammwal and Kabir had previously teamed up for Khuda Haafiz in 2020, which thanks to the pandemic had received a straight-to-OTT release on Disney+Hotstar. In the previous film we had been introduced to Sameer (Jammwal), an easygoing software engineer married to Nargis (Shivaleeka Oberoi); the two of them work in a fictional Middle East country called Noman. After Nargis is kidnapped, Sameer tears up half the country and battles terrorists and rogue intelligence officials to finally rescue his wife and return to India.

Khuda Haafiz Chapter 2 begins on a sombre note—after Nargis’ rape by her captors, she falls into a PTSD-fuelled depressive state. Nothing seems to be helping until the couple adopts a young girl called Nandini (Riddhi Sharma). Things seem to be looking up for the reunited couple…when the nightmare begins all over again and Nandini is kidnapped.

The Khuda Haafiz movies are, obviously, a showcase for Jammwal, perhaps India’s only legit martial arts movie star, to display his full range of skills. And Chapter 2, while it doesn’t have the strongest storyline or particularly well-written dialogue, does know how to get the most out of Jammwal the action star.

There are some smashing hand-to-hand combat sequences, a brutal, brilliantly shot knife-fight in an alley, a classic prison brawl for the ages…the list goes on. Sameer basically hurtles from one fight to another in his quest to rescue Nandini and every new plot twist is another opportunity for Jammwal to axe-kick and back-flip his way across the screen. On the action front, the movie absolutely delivers.

The Jammwal effect

Vidyut Jammwal began his career just over a decade ago, in 2011, with a pair of films — the NTR Jr. Telugu-language film Sakthi and the John Abraham-led action thriller Force, both of which featured Jammwal as an antagonist (although his role in Sakthi was a relatively small one). These two movies were the first signs that Bollywood might just have an action-movie specialist on its hands. Force, in particular, saw Jammwal utilizing his physical capabilities to the hilt; the climactic battle between him and John Abraham was pretty well-executed by the late director Nishikant Kamat. Abraham had famously bulked up for the movie (he lifts bikes and so on during action sequences; it’s that kind of film) and for the scene to work, his opponent had to be equally formidable. I remember that one of the posters for Force showed Jammwal and Abraham shirtless, fighting in the middle of what seemed to be an industrial meat packing plant, with all manner of overhead hooks and carcasses in the vicinity; back then it was unusual for Bollywood villains to be as young and ripped as Jammwal.

Jammwal came through with shining colours and there was no looking back from thereon. In Tigmanshu Dhulia’s Bullett Raja, Jammwal played a ‘super-cop’ character tasked with hunting down the titular anti-hero, Saif Ali Khan’s UP gangster character. Dhulia clearly knew the score as far as Jammwal was concerned, because he gave his young star a full-blown 6-7-minute intro chase-and-fight sequences where Jammwal does some crisp hand-to-hand fighting, a boxing-style brawl or two, plenty of chasing and parkour-adjacent stunts, capped off with a legit martial arts-heavy sequence that no other Indian actor could have pulled off, to be honest. Just look at the fight sequences featuring Saif and Jimmy Shergill in the movie and compare ‘em to Jammwal’s stunt work — the gulf in quality is apparent.

In 2013, Jammwal’s big solo release finally arrived in the form of Commando, produced by Vipul Shah and directed by Dilip Ghosh. Jammwal plays the titular role, a super-soldier called Karanveer Singh Dogra (a nod to the fact that Jammwal grew up in Kashmir). Commando and later, its two sequels, represent Jammwal in his comfort zone, with a great degree of creative control.

Jammwal has always been a keen student of martial arts movies around the world, and the inspirations for Commando are proof of that. For example, in the middle of a chase sequence, he does a full aerial backflip through a constrained space in the middle of a crowded street. Getting it wrong even by a few inches would mean serious injury, as any stuntman will tell you. But the scene is so well-done in the end that Jammwal and the director couldn’t resist giving us the backflip in triplicate, from slightly different angles—thereby acknowledging the source, Tony Jaa’s similar constrained-space backflip moment in the Thai action movie Ong Bak, which became a global blockbuster in 2003.

Commando’s climactic battle scene is in a mini-palace of sorts and the way Jammwal clambers up the building, mowing down all comers with expertly performed martial arts moves, is clearly inspired by The Raid (2011), the Indonesian martial arts extravaganza that had wowed global audiences a couple of years before the release of Commando.

To be absolutely clear — these are not complaints I’m making here. On the contrary I am glad that an Indian performer is so keenly studying where action movies are headed, globally speaking, and what aspects of their success can be replicated in a distinctly Indian way. This is completely different from say, Pritam or Anu Malik straight-up lifting hit tunes from around the world.

Jammwal’s acting, too, has improved by leaps and bounds. In Tigmanshu Dhulia’s slow-burn crime drama Yaara (2020), there was hardly any fighting sequences devoted to Jammwal and instead, we got to see the man’s drastically improved dramatic skills. It reminded us that Jammwal has always done the odd film here and there where action isn’t really a major element; these include the Ajay Devgn movie Baadshaaho and even a small appearance in the heartwarming children’s movie Stanley Ka Dabba. These roles have made him a better, well-rounded actor than he was in 2011, towards the beginning of his career.

Vidyut Jammwal, ace YouTuber

Jammwal has always been quite popular on YouTube, with over 1.3 million subscribers at last count. Like a lot of action movie stars, he would upload exercise and training videos, with the occasional stunt-adjacent clip to boot (in Jammwal’s case, he did a bunch of weightlifting videos with LPG cylinders in place of traditional weights; a typically desi solution for lockdown-induced gym closures).

During the first national lockdown, however, Jammwal started doing something quite interesting with his YouTube channel. In a series of interviews titled ‘X-Rayed with Vidyut Jammwal’ he spoke to a bunch of international action movie stars—Scott Adkins, Michael Jai White, Daniel Wu and so on.

These interviews really are pure gold for action movie and martial arts fans. Adkins and Jai White are both superstars of the direct-to-video action movie universe, with occasional appearances in mainstream Hollywood movies (Doctor Strange for Adkins, The Dark Knight for Jai White). They have a wealth of technical knowledge, not just about the physical regimen action movie stars have to follow or the martial arts techniques they have to master — but also very real, valuable moviemaking knowledge about the way large-scale action scenes are planned, set up and executed. How do you manage crowd action scenes? How do we best use fake blood? How far do you pull your punches in the middle of a breakneck sequence? What went into creating some of the best-known action set-pieces of all time?

Jammwal discusses all these and more with his distinguished guests, who clearly adore him as much as he does them. Adkins even dropped his favorite scenes from Jammwal movies, appreciating the stunt work and the martial arts on display. To watch two highly skilled practitioners talking about the ins and outs of onscreen martial arts is a pleasure and very educational to boot.

Khuda Haafiz Chapter 2 has proven that Jammwal is ready for the big leagues. His last film, Sanak, too, featured world-class action scenes and some bone-crunching hand-to-hand stuff from Jammwal. This is an era where just about everything has a potential international audience, and Indian stars are getting major roles in big movies all over the world. Christopher Nolan made Dimple Kapadia one of the main villains of his last film Tenet, Alia Bhatt and Dhanush are both going to be a part of Netflix projects in the near future.

It’s high time action movie directors around the world — Gareth Evans, Isaac Florentine, Wilson Yip and company — take note of Jammwal’s martial arts prowess, formidable screen presence and malleable baritone. An all-star team-up film, along the lines of Triple Threat (which pitted Tony Jaa, Tiger Chen and Iko Uwais against Scott Adkins and Michael Jai White), would hit the sweet spot, I feel.