DIRECTOR: Sabbir Khan
STARRING: Tiger Shroff, Shraddha Kapoor and Sudheer Babu
RATING: 1.5 stars
STARRING: Tiger Shroff, Shraddha Kapoor and Sudheer Babu
RATING: 1.5 stars
I whistled the moment Tiger Shroff made his entry. And then he spoke and I found all the air that left my mouth a second ago, rapidly abandon my body leaving me like a deflated balloon at the end of movie. But what an entry boss!! He did a head stand, actually a two finger stand, balancing all his body weight on two fingers. Mind-frigging-blowing.
Usually there are action sequences in a movie, around a story. In Baaghi there is a story around action sequences. I am sorry. I am misleading when I say there is a story in the film.
Shroff plays Ronny Bina Screw Wala, (pun definitely intended) who is a rebel. We are told this at every given opportunity. He is such a rebel that when his father packs him off to a martial arts school in Kerela, he obliges. He is asked to sleep on a mat he doesn’t mind. He is made to sweep the floors of the school, serve food and do all kinds of jobs, he does them all with a smile. I mean he is such a rebel that Oxford now spells the word as –o-b-e-d-i-e-n-t.
In fact there is a scene where Ronny is given a ten minute lecture on how he should be a rebel with purpose which makes perfect sense especially coming from a movie that has writing with so great purpose.
Ronny falls in love with a girl called Sia who is special; like Taare-Zameen-Par-every-child-is-special-kind-of-special. Like she talks to the rains; holds fully fledged conversations with nature, like when it should rain, where, which parts…and even an –I-love-you.
Sia is modern day Sita minus T. Unlike Sita maiyya she doesn’t drop her jewelry. She lavishly distributes them. Be it a ring or an expensive necklace, if she has it, she will give it.
No wonder Ms. Generous has two dumbbells of suitors; Ronny and Raghav. They both letch at her, air kiss her, make dirty jokes as well. However one becomes the hero, the other villain, because the former spots her five minutes earlier. You see, women in Hindi films, are not human beings. They are like a seat in a local train in Mumbai; whoever spots it first, gets it.
Why these men fall for her is neither explained no explored. Their love triangle is so unnatural that Kim Kardashian’s face looks real.
The action shifts to Thailand where Kalaripayattu meets Shaolin Kung Fu for most of the second half. Right in the middle of the film we are told the villain lives in a ten story building that’s guarded by professional killers on every floor. I feared they would have a long fight sequence on every alternate floor in the climax of the film. I was wrong. They had a fight sequence on EVERY floor.
Baaghi offers some brilliant humor as well. Like at one point we are told how menacing Raghav’s professional killers are. The next moment a few of them are beaten blue and black, single handedly by Shraddha Kapoor.
The film also offers intense emotional moments like Sanjay Mishra as a blind taxi driver, trying to make ends meet or Sunil Grover as a Punjabi daddy subjected to such uninspiring writing that you shed a tear or two for the sad demise of humor and comic timing.
Some of the action sequences are good but it just gets too repetitive. Fight sequences without any emotional engagement just falls flat anyway. You need to be invested in their stories to be able to root for them. The film surely scores in cinematography. The way Kerala is shot, especially the boat race (Vallam Kalli) sequence made me visit the state so badly.
Tiger-Gareeb-Producers-Ka-Hrithik-Roshan-Shroff is cast well. His agile body and his training bring due credibility to the martial arts, the film features. He kicks some serious butt in action scenes, but papa, he needs to work hard on his dialogue delivery.
Shraddha Kapoor shows some promise too. She has lent such depth to the character of Sia with her clothes. Like she wears Salwar Kameez when she is in India and then slips into a blue bra top when she is in Thailand.
Baaghi bored me largely. Watch it only if you are an MMA fan. More-Info
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