Awarapan 2: Emraan Hashmi kisses a lean patch goodbye

By Pickle  August 18, 2026

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By Saibal Chatterjee

Racing towards Rs 100 crore in domestic net collections and crossing Rs 130 crore worldwide in just four days, Awarapan 2 is a certified hit. If it sustains its run in the second week as well, the blockbuster tag will be well within the film’s reach.

What does Awarapan 2 mean in the overall context of Emraan Hashmi’s acting career? He has been a safe bet as a pro but the box-office has been rather fickle towards him. What the success of his new film does is help him return to the point where, at the start of his Bollywood innings, he was a veritable hit machine.

Beginning with Footpath in 2003, Hashmi had a series of films – notably Murder, Zeher and Gangster, all bankrolled by uncle Mukesh Bhatt’s Vishesh Films – that pulled in the crowds. In a world that has changed since then, Awarapan 2 has catapulted the star back into the Bollywood big league.

Awarapan 2, which features Shabana Azmi, Puran Gabbi and Suvinder Vicky as antagonists, is a sequel to a romantic thriller that flopped when it was released in 2007. Awarapan was a crime drama starring Hashmi and Shriya Saran as star-crossed lovers.

Over subsequent years, Awarapan, helmed by Mohit Suri and produced by Mukesh Bhatt, went on to acquire cult status. Its memorable musical tracks and numerous widely watched television reruns did the trick for it. The fans seemed ready for a sequel.  

Nineteen years on, the follow-up has rekindled nostalgia and given Hashmi’s stagnating career a huge and well-deserved fillip. He is one of those Bollywood stars who rarely fails to deliver as an actor although some critics see him as somebody who is usually stuck in the erotic crime thriller rut.

One view is that Hashmi’s career has been defined by the superhit songs of his films. The assertion is: remove the collective soundtrack of his films and he does not have much to show. That notion is not true at all. Hashmi is an actor of proven calibre. A film of his might flop, but he himself has never been found wanting as a performer.

His supporting acts in films like Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai (2010), Shanghai (2014), Tiger 3 (2023), and They Call Him OG (2025, his Telugu debut in which he played the villain) have been noted for their impact.

It was his performance in Dibakar Banerjee’s Shanghai that led to Hashmi being cast in Tigers, a film directed by the Oscar-winning Danis Tanovic (No Man’s Land). Tigers had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2014.       

In Awarapan 2, which takes off from where Awarapan left and follows the male protagonist Shivam Pandit as he sets out to infiltrate a gang of child traffickers in Bangkok with the aim of rescuing a foundling whisked away from an orphanage in India, Hashmi is in fine fettle.

Backed as he always is by a soundtrack that grows on you, he brings his trademark restraint to bear upon his performance. He blends an easy swag with unfailing steadiness of demeanour to etch out an invincible gun-for-hire with a very high pain threshold.

The things that Shivam Pandit does on the screen in life-threatening situations border on the incredible, but the unflashy and rooted persona that Hashmi exudes lends the character immediate believability.

In Awarapan 2, Hashmi sheds his ‘serial kisser’ tag and transmutes into a full-fledged action star. His character does have a romantic interest in the film in the form of Zara (Disha Patani), a musically inclined woman trapped in a family of criminals. But Shivam’s principal object of affection is Aaliyah, a girl he finds abandoned at a graveyard where his beloved, also Aaliyah, lies buried.                 

After a longish lean phase that saw him enjoy greater success on streaming platforms with web shows like Bard of Blood, Showtime and Taskaree than on the big screen, Hashmi is in the groove once again to the delight of his fans.

The instant commercial success of Awarapan 2 is a testimony to the lasting appeal of the tragic love story at the heart of Awarapan. It is unusual for a Hindi movie that failed to find takers to worm its way into the collective consciousness of fans to the extent that Awarapan did.

Hashmi may not have delivered earth-shattering blockbusters in recent years but the screen actor’s innate ability to deliver solid and crowd-pleasing performances in film after film has worked to his advantage ever since his debut at the turn of the millennium.

That is precisely why Awarapan 2, directed by Nitin Kakkar, known for offbeat films like Filmistaan and Ram Singh Charlie as well as the Saif Ali Khan and Alaya F starrer Jawani Jaaneman, has hit the bullseye.

A combination of Hashmi’s star power and the potential inherent in the flawed but formidable pivotal character that made a sequel necessary has carried the new film to heights that have caught industry observers by surprise. But it appears his fans knew full well what to expect from Awarapan 2. They have got all that – and more.