2 Countries: An unimpressive adaptation

A long, tiring, and lacklustre remake of the Malayalam hit, which would've been better left alone
2 Countries: An unimpressive adaptation

After a slew of underwhelming films, it seems like Sunil got sucked into another insipid comedy. 2 Countries, the remake of the Malayalam hit, doesn’t retain the impact and the quality of the original evidently, considering the lacklustre execution and haywire comedy tracks. 

Director: N Shanker
Cast: Sunil, Manisha Raj 

Ullas (Sunil) is a 30-something man who is willing to do anything for money. To further his greed, he promises to marry the village goon, Patel’s wheelchair-bound daughter. However, when he gets acquainted with Laya (Manisha Raj), his childhood sweetheart, but more importantly, a richer prospect, he ditches Patel’s daughter. Now Ullas finds that Laya who is to inherit a huge fortune, has her assets frozen, because she is an alcoholic. Ullas in a drunken stupor doesn’t pay attention to Laya when she admits that to him before the wedding. After a few difficult days with his alcoholic wife, he flies to Canada along with Laya, to flee from Patel. In Canada, despite some friction, Ullas, on finding out about Laya’s difficult childhood leading to alcoholism and her otherwise good nature, begins to fall for her. But when Laya finds out about Ullas’ initial reasons for getting married, she seeks divorce. How the couple ends up together despite the odds forms the rest of the story. 

Sunil sticks to his trademark style of comedy, with loud and expressive punchlines and squeaky voices. To his defence, it does work in favour of the film in parts, where you can’t help but chuckle. But on the whole, one can barely call 2 Countries a comedy. Manisha Raj looks beatiful on-screen and also delivers a decent performance. 

At two hours and 41 minutes, 2 Countries, is long and tiring. The moments in the story between the husband and wife which could’ve been quite heartwarming if attention had been paid to them, are wrapped up in a hurry. The forcible and fake accented Telugu of the NRIs in the film is painful to follow and impossible to take seriously, to say the least.

As much as you look forward to seeing what happens in the actual plotline, you are constantly distracted by the mish-mash of random scenes, sequences and Tollywood references. While the original Malayalam story may be a worthy one, the adaptation certainly groans under the weight of poor execution.
 

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