Gatta Kusthi 2 review: The house husband holds his own

Small towns will forgive a man most things before they forgive him an apron. Gatta Kusthi 2 understands this, and its best stretches do nothing more than let Veera (Vishnuu Vishal) live inside that discomfort. He is now a full-time house husband, packing lunchboxes, swapping recipes with the neighborhood wives and leading their aerobics sessions while Keerthy (Aishwarya Lekshmi) builds her wrestling career. Their daughter Mathi Malar (Zara) dotes on him. The arrangement works, which is precisely why everyone around them keeps trying to fix it.

Veera and his market-run regulars, the friendships that keep the neighborhood husbands up at night.

The trouble arrives in a tracksuit. A jealous wrestling coach (Tarak Ponnappa, doing quiet, controlled work) starts manipulating Veera, and the misunderstandings he plants snowball until the couple lands in family court, a furious Keerthy demanding divorce while Mathi Malar refuses to choose a parent. The escalation is overcooked, you can feel the screenplay marching its characters into position, but it hands the second half real stakes, and Chella Ayyavu cashes them in.

That is also when the bench clears. Karunas and Lizzie Antony spar like a married couple keeping score, Munishkanth, Kaali Venkat and Karunakaran keep the counters flying, and Yogi Babu drops by to collect his laughs. Ramya Krishnan’s cameo carries more authority than several recent full-length roles. Mokksha is a bright presence as Mathi’s teacher, though that subplot is a detour the film enjoys for longer than it needs. At 2 hours and 34 minutes, a tighter cut was sitting right there.

Zara’s Mathi Malar is the sequel’s best discovery, natural in every frame she gets.

Vishnuu Vishal carries the film with visible relish. The comic timing is quick, the doting-dad beats are warm without turning syrupy, and when the script wounds Veera, he resists the urge to milk it. Zara is a delight, delivering lines like a kid who has actually lived in this house. Aishwarya Lekshmi brings complete conviction to the wrestling and to Keerthy’s bind between career, motherhood and a marriage souring on a lie. The writing does not return her favor. Keerthy’s side of the argument gets sketched rather than explored, and for a franchise built on humbling a chauvinist, the sequel is oddly comfortable pleading mostly one case. It plays progressive in one scene and conveniently old-fashioned in the next.

Aishwarya Lekshmi gets the conviction right; the script gives her too little to argue with.

Sean Roldan keeps the energy up, Sambhavakkaari is the pick of his tracks, and his background score knows when a joke needs air. KM Bhaskaran shoots it bright and busy, the wrestling bouts have genuine snap, and the ring-set climax resolves the film’s argument better than its courtroom ever does.

The ring is still where this family settles things.

Sequels to sleeper hits usually just get louder. This one keeps the original’s charm, adds a livelier ensemble, and fumbles only when it tries to say something serious about the marriage it built. There is a reason its first show reopened the 85-year-old Casino on Mount Road to a full house. As a family outing, it is an easy 3.5/5.