Ek Villain Returns
Directed by: Mohit Suri
Written by: Mohit Suri Aseem Arrora
Dialogues by: Aseem Arrora
Produced by: Shobha Kapoor
Ekta Kapoor
Bhushan Kumar
Krishan Kumar
Starring: John Abraham
Arjun Kapoor
Disha Patani
Tara Sutaria
Cinematography : Vikas Sivaraman
Edited by: Devendera Murdeshwar
Music by: Score::Raju Singh
Songs: Ankit Tiwari
Tanishk Bagchi
Kaushik-Guddu
Production: T-Series
companies: Balaji Motion Pictures
Distributed by: AA Films
Release date: 29 July 2022
Running time: 129 minutes[1]
Country: India
Language: Hindi
Budget: ₹62−80 crore[2][3]
Box office : est. ₹63.57 crore
About
Ek Villain Returns is a 2022 Indian Hindi-language action thriller film[5][6] written and directed by Mohit Suri, being a spiritual successor to his 2014 film Ek Villain, and produced by T-Series and Balaji Motion Pictures.[7] It stars John Abraham, Arjun Kapoor, Disha Patani and Tara Sutaria.
Plot
A masked intruder barges into an apartment complex, where he attacks and kills a singer named Aarvi Malhotra. The cops, headed by ex-CBI officer and DCP Aditya Rathore, deduce that the attack was orchested by Gautham Mehra, who is the son of a businessman named Divesh Mehra, and arrest him.
Flashback: Gautam Mehra is a spoilt brat, who is berated by his father, Divesh, for having created a commotion at his ex-girlfriend's wedding. The commotion video has been made into a rap song by singer Aarvi. Gautam plans vengeance against Aarvi. Pretending to be in love with her, he helps her scare away her rival Qiran. Aarvi falls for Gautam and reveals her birth secret, that her father Balkrishnan Shastri, a popular singer, had an extramartial affair with her mother, but never accepted either of them. Her main goal is to make her father accept her as his daughter by becoming a famous singer. Gautam leaks Aarvi's childhood photos and Shastri publicly rejects his daughter. Aarvi is heartbroken. Three months after the breakup, when Gautam gets attacked by his ex-girlfriend's husband, and Aarvi takes care of him, he realizes his love for her. He pleads with her to give him a second chance, but Aarvi leaves him, albeit with a heavy heart.
Present: Gautam escapes from the cops. ACP V. K. Ganesan surmises that Gautam hasn't killed Aarvi. The cops interrogate Bhairav Purohit, whom Aarvi had called from her phone, the day she was murdered, but he denies committing the crime and there is no evidence either. Ganesan determines a pattern, that the killer only targets young girls with one-sided lovers, after discovering that 18 girls have been murdered with similar modus operandi in the past 6 months. The ensuing circumstances Ganesan determine that Gautam is not the serial killer.
Flashback: Bhairav is a cab-driver who also works part-time as a zookeeper along with his friend Keshav. He meets Rasika, a retail salesgirl at a mall, falls deeply in love with her and harbours plans of marriage. One day, Rasika injures a group of rogues that were eve-teasing her, which reveals her dark side to Bhairav. The day Bhairav decides to propose to Rasika, he witnesses her getting intimate with Atul,her manager, a married man, and he is heartbroken. Rasika subsequently instigates him to kill girls who don’t reciprocates the feelings of their respective boyfriends. Bhairav is mentally tormented and starts murdering dozens of girls. One day when Aarvi is travelling in his cab, Bhairav misunderstands that she has dumped Gautam, and attacks her.
Present: Gautam learns about Bhairav's zoo address and leaves to confront him. Ganesan is killed by Bhairav. It is revealed that Aarvi is in fact alive. She tries to escape the zoo where she had been kept by Bhairav but he catches her and locks her in an underground cage. Just as Gautam and Bhairav are about to fight, the police comes and detains Bhairav. They investigate Keshav's (Bhairav's friend at the zoo) kid who tells the police that his father is the killer. The police also investigate the crime scene where they find a girl's dead body inside the freezer, but it is not Aarvi. Outside the station, Gautam sees Bhairav and Rasika hugging. They both go to Aarvi's cage and think that she is unconscious. But she isn't and stabs Bhairav with a glass shard that she found there. Rasika starts to laugh while Bhairav attacks Aarvi. Gautam comes to save Aarvi and a fight ensues between the guys. Bhairav hits Gautam and he falls to the ground. Bhairav asks Rasika for a 5-star rating. Gautam starts to laugh and asks who is Rasika and where she is. He tells Bhairav that she is gone and that he was hallucinating her. Bhairav then reminisces that Rasika told him that Atul was planning to ditch his family for her and that he had in fact inadvertently killed Rasika by cracking her back, while hugging her and begging her not to leave him. The body that the police has found in the freezer was Rasika’s, who Bhairav had kept for his own happiness. He drops to the ground in dismay while Gautam and Aarvi reconcile. Realizing his mistake, Bhairav walks inside the cage of the tiger only to meet the same fate of his victims. Aarvi can be seen singing at her concert with the support of her fans and Gautam.
In the post-credit scene, at a mental hospital we see Rakesh Mahadkar from the prequel, who has survived the accident and became paraplegic, meet Bhairav, who has lost an eye due to the tiger attack. Rakesh goes in Bhairav's room and unplugs Bhairav's medication and machines and recites his promise from the prequel and Bhairav wakes up just before the screen blacks out.
Trailer