Ragini MMS 2 review: No plot, only a near-naked Sunny Leone

by Tanushree Bhasin Making a horror film is not easy anymore. It’s a crowded, inventive genre that’s come up with all kinds of tactics to scare an audience and consequently, it’s difficult to find devices that haven’t already done to death. With Ragini MMS 2, however, scaring people was clearly not even the agenda. We have here a sleazy film director (Parvin Dabas) who is making a film about the Ragini MMS incident and has cast Sunny Leone (playing herself) as Ragini. They go back to the haunted house to shoot the film and obviously the Maharastrian chudail from the first film returns, except in the avatar of the oversexed Leone, who doesn’t miss any opportunity to thrust her boobs into the camera. Sex in the bathroom scene- check. Sex in the rain- check. Sex in the bedroom- check. Sex in the lake- check. Still think this is a horror film? What sealed the deal (and lead me to change seats in the movie hall), was when I heard two guys sitting behind me unzipping their pants. [caption id=“attachment_1445311” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Less horror more sex in Ragini MMS 2. Image courtesy: Ibnlive[/caption] The only thing slightly interesting about the film is how it allowed Leone, a well-known adult film actor, to speak in her own defence. Every man on the set of the film within the film looks at her as if she were public property. When she insists that she must meet the real Ragini to research her role, the director mumbles, “Yeh porno se Ritu-porno kaise ban gayi?” Ragini MMS 2’s saving grace is that Leone does get to humiliate quite a few of these perverts, in effect also cursing those in the audience who judge her while vicariously consuming her body. In one particularly steamy sequence, Leone challenges a nasty co-star to act out a sex scene with her and when he fails, she enthrals the entire crew all by herself. Still think mumbling “oooh and aaahhs” is not really acting, she asks. Unfortunately, the fact that Leone is in a film that pays greater emphasis to her body and sex appeal than plot and character serves to undermine her campaign for respect considerably. She heaves, pants, sighs and roams around the house in her under garments, much to the delight of the male audience. Using the classic horror film trope of the scared girl in distress, the film is a voyeuristic cliché that disturbs more than it scares. Balaji Telefilms has a history of making films that question and reinforce sexual and gender norms simultaneously, and much like their other so-called feminist film The Dirty Picture, Ragini MMS 2 too uses sex and the female body to sell tickets and offers only a tiny bit of space to the woman to argue her case. Packed between two hit songs — “Baby Doll” and “Chaar Bottle Vodka” — is the travesty of a film called Ragini MMS 2. While the audience whistled, danced and cheered to both these songs, they also whistled, danced and cheered at a scantily clad Sunny Leone throughout the film. The plot itself was clearly inconsequential to both Leone and her fans. To those of us whose job it is to pay attention to such details, Ragini MMS 2 was a complete waste of time. It uses and overuses every possible horror film trope in a story oddly reminiscent of The Conjuring, leaving me with no choice but to concentrate on Level 105 of Candy Crush Saga.