Mardaani 2
Mardaani 2 is a 2019 Indian Hindi-language action thriller film and a sequel to the 2014 film Mardaani. It is directed by Gopi Puthran who wrote the previous film, marking his directorial debut, and backed by Aditya Chopra through Yash Raj Films, with Rani Mukerji reprising her role of police officer Shivani Shivaji Roy from the previous film. The plot follows her attempts to catch a 21-year-old rapist and murderer, played by newcomer Vishal Jethwa. Mardaani 2 was announced on 10 December 2018 by a social media post. Filming began in March 2019 and was extensively done in Rajasthan. The first look was unveiled in April 2019 and release date was announced in September 2019. It was released on 13 December 2019 to generally positive response towards its screenplay, pace, direction and performances (particularly those of Mukerji and Jethwa) The film performed successfully at the box office and earned a worldwide gross of . Plot
The opening credits show Shivani Shivaji Roy (Rani Mukerji) clearing the UPSC exams in 2015 to become an Indian Police Service officer. In Kota, Rajasthan, a 21-year-old psychopath, Sunny (Vishal Jethwa), kidnaps an outspoken young woman, Latika. He brutally tortures, rapes, and then murders her. Shivani, who has been appointed as the new Superintendent of Police of Kota, arrives at the crime scene and clashes with her misogynistic subordinate DSP Brij Shekhawat (Sumit Nijhawan). The brutality of Latika's murder disturbs Shivani and makes her more determined to catch the killer. Sunny, who has actually come to Kota from Meerut on a killing contract given by politician Govind Mishra a.k.a. Panditji (Prasanna Ketkar), sees Shivani on TV when she publicly promises to find Latika's killer. He taunts her by sneaking into Shivani's home and stealing her sari. He then dresses up as a woman, tricks the journalist Kamal Parihar (Anurag Sharma) , and kills him; he also hires Pravin, a tea-seller near the police station, to kill the journalist's wife, Aabha Parihar, in a suicide blast, then takes Pravin's place as tea-seller to keep an eye on Shivani, introducing himself as a mute boy named Bajrang. When Shivani brings in Lahanya, a child from the slums who had witnessed the blast, Sunny kills him. Following the media uproar on the failure of the police to catch the murderer, Shivani is set to be transferred from Kota. Since the new officer will come after two days, Shivani, along with her teammates, decides to catch Sunny within that time. Shivani makes peace with Shekhawat since his network of informers is very strong in the city, and he leads them to his contact, who reveals that the real mastermind behind the killing of Kamal Parihar is the youth politician Viplav Beniwal (Sunny Hinduja). Shivani arrests Beniwal's right-hand man Kunwar and brutally tortures him into revealing Sunny's whereabouts. Sunny kidnaps another outspoken woman but the police track him down. They discover his victim already raped and tortured, but still alive, and manage to save her. Sunny, acting as Bajrang, gets a lift from Shivani. Before he can strangle her, Shivani stops him, having realized that Bajrang is Sunny. The two fight but Sunny escapes. The police find a video of Sunny taken by a bystander, and Shivani has it made viral on all social media platforms. Sunny kidnaps Pandit's granddaughter Priyanka and threatens to kill her unless Shivani apologizes to him. Shivani and the police manage to save the girl. Shekhawat mends his ways and agrees to help Shivani. Shivani discovers that Sunny's next target is the female politician Sunanda. That night, amidst the Diwali celebrations, Shivani and her team search for him. She discovers him in the house of a local couple, having taken their daughter and Sunanda hostage. Shivani is knocked unconscious and tied up. When she awakes, Sunny is strangling Sunanda; to distract him, Shivani talks about his mother and his past, which she learned from Sunny's father, who is imprisoned in Meerut. As a child, Sunny's father had tried to murder his mother, who had been an outspoken woman. In terror, Sunny's mother had hidden on the terrace, but Sunny told his father where she was hiding; his father then killed her. The guilt and trauma of his mother's death has since caused Sunny to become unhinged and take that anger out on other similarly confident women. Shivani signals Sunanda and the other hostage to toss the nearby buckets of paint on Sunny, as he is asthmatic. She then gains the upper hand, beating Sunny with his own belt. She kicks him outside and continues beating him as the neighbourhood gathers to watch. 