‘Gatta Kusthi 2’ Movie Review: Double the fun, same old tricks

When Chell Ayyava’s Gatta Kusthi released in 2022, it turned out to be quite a hit for both Vishnu Vishal and Aishwarya Lekshmi and became a hit that fueled his post-theatrical streaming momentum. However, I have to admit that I was one of the minority of viewers who vehemently despised much of the film – sure it had a lot of fun and a quirky online player, but at the end of the day it was a highly regressive one trick masquerading as a progressive pro-women film. So you have to imagine the expectations I would put into a sequel coming out four years later.

However, I am surprised to report that Gatta Kusthi 2 not only improves on its predecessor, but also comes close – almost – to fixing the problems of the first film. Six years after the events of the first film, Veera (Vishnuu) is no longer the patriarchy boy he used to be – and director Chella pushes him to the other extreme for the film’s purposes. Veera is now a docile house husband who accompanies his wrestling wife Keerthy (Aishwarya) to matches with snacks in hand, takes care of their school-bound child Mathi Malar (Zara Zyanna) and teaches aerobics to the housewives in his neighborhood.

Vishnu Vishal and Zara Zyanna in a still from the movie | Photo credit: Special arrangement

Gender roles are so rigidly fixed in this world, as in ours, that the film takes a heightened lens on Veera’s identity as a house-husband – threatening the masculinity of his neighbours’ husbands, causing trouble in Mathi’s class, ruining his relationship with his uncle Rathnam (Karunaas), and eventually creating a conflict that plays a central role between him. Jealous of Keerthy’s success, a manipulative wrestling coach (Tarak Ponnappa) uses Veera’s domestic worries to drive away Keerthy’s wrestling dreams, kick-starting the story of Gatty Kusthi 2.

How everything fits seamlessly into the narrative is eye-catching. In the first part, the setup is around a video clip that Veera’s friend Sattam (Kaali Venkat) would make about Veera before the wedding. Similarly, many details in Gatta Kusthi 2 find a suitable situation for a payoff – the most playful of which is Mathi’s penchant for dancing, which recurs in the scene where he left the hall in parts. It can even be said that the humor in the sequel worked much better than in the first feature film.

Gatta Kusthi 2 (Tamil)

Directed by Chella Ayyavu

Starring: Vishnu Vishal, Aishwarya Lekshmi

Duration: 154 minutes

Story: As Veera embraces life as a house husband, a manipulative wrestling coach drives a wedge between him and his champion, threatening both their marriage and her career.

Chella Ayyavu also corrects two key blemishes in his material. One was enraged when Gatta Kusthi ambiguously ended Keerthy’s wrestling dreams as she vowed to make her newborn daughter a wrestling champion. Not only does Keerthy get all the exposure an ambitious sportswoman deserves, but the film actually plays into how she puts her dreams into her child – Chella explains why it’s not ideal to make decisions for her children, and why girls have to fight back in an increasingly dangerous world. Further, after failing to give Veera’s aunt Padma Rathnam (Lizzie Antony) representation and a sense of closure in the first film, Chella does well in the sequel as she finally shows her husband his place.

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As everything seems to go smoothly, a terrifying courtroom scene with Ramya Krishnan in a cameo signals what’s to come. Again trying to wrap things up, the director resorts to some brain-numbingly regressive tropes. In both Gatta Kusthi films, women’s bodies are confusedly used against themselves. Just before their wrestling match in the first film, Keerthy, a trained wrestler, becomes pregnant, paving the way for a heroic climax for her husband, who has only trained for 15 days. In the second film too, the climax is a fad, but two regressive ideas are thrown into the ring instead of one.

The last thirty minutes of Gatta Kusthi 2 almost overturns all the good it has done up to that point, and many arcs – like the fate of the rogue trainer and whether Mathi will choose the match – come to an abrupt end, leaving one to wonder if the fight will make it to the third round. After all, there’s a lot more to the sequel than the first part, so one can really expect everyone involved in the project to see the fruits of their success – especially Vishnu and Aishwarya, who gave their best. Everyone except the film’s central character Keerthy will rejoice. For all that she is put through in the film’s climactic sequence, one hopes that her famous epilogue scene will be her final bow from our screens.

Gatta Kusthi 2 is currently running in theatres

Published – 03 Jul 2026 14:02 IST