Critics’ Verdict: Nawaz Shines In an Average ‘Raman Raghav 2.0’

Nawazuddin Siddiqui delivers an outstanding performance in ‘Raman Raghav 2.0’

Film: Raman Raghav 2.0
Director: Anurag Kashyap
Cast: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Vicky Kaushal, Shobhita Dhulipala

Excerpts from reviews of Raman Raghav 2.0:

Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s all-too-convincing performance will count as a career-best for the talented actor. Raman Raghav 2.0 might lack the layers needed to be a contemporary update of the serial killer movie, but it has plenty of surface pleasures. Stripped of its pretensions, Raman Raghav 2.0 is classic late-night entertainment. It has blood and gore, a compromised police officer, a moody femme fatale, and several taut moments of suspense.

Nandini Ramnath (Scroll.in)

Yes, we have seen this Siddiqui before. But more important, Kashyap has already taken us on this journey before, the underbelly of mankind, or at least with characters spread out in Mumbai. There are tones of Raman Raghav 2.0 that were already present in That Girl With Yellow Boots and Kashyap’s 2013 film Ugly. If there is one big surprise in Raman Raghav 2.0, it is Vicky Kaushal’s star-making performance, a far turn from his heartbreaking innocent Deepak character in last year’s Masaan.

Aseem Chabra (Rediff.com)

Yup, it’s Mr Kashyap. Which means grime, crime quite often for no reason or rhyme. Plus note the patented shady alleyways, a backdrop full of shades of grey, nightclubs where you shouldn’t stray. And so the heat is on, more scorching than the temperatures of the month of May. Usually, Kashyap’s sidebar characters are lifelike and possessed of strong personalities (refer to Gangs of Wasseypur). In this 2.0. whatever, the cop’s drug-zapped girlfriend (Sobhita Dhulipala) has a striking screen presence, but cannot rise above a role which surrounds her in a purple haze.As for Vicky Kaushal, he can’t quite match up to the showy acting pyrotechnics of Nawazuddin Siddiqui, who is indeed the prime reason for a look at this extra-pungent chicken curry.

Khalid Mohamed (Spotboye.com)

That cops and crooks are basically two sides of the same coin is a familiar schtick played out in the movies. That’s what Raman Raghav 2.0, fashioned as a psychological thriller, sets out to do and leaves us with a film that becomes a tough trudge, not just because of its sheer bestiality, but because its road to perdition is rocky. There are some mesmeric bits in here, which belong to Siddiqui. But those are not enough. Without those crucial elements, the film is rendered atmospheric yet hollow, and we are turned into cringing voyeurs, into reluctant participants, without redemption.

Shubhra Gupta (IndianExpress.com)