Review: BAAGHI 2

RAMBO REDUX

2 Corny Stars

Mini Review:

I don't know what the director grew up on, but this movie is a bhelpuri of so many dvds (especially First Blood) that you need lots of coffee to keep up with the corn bhel. Tiger Shroff has come into his own (the facial fuzz helps) and thankfully he only has to seethe, Randeep Hooda, Manoj Bajpai and Deepak Dobriyal fill in the acting parts.It's a fun action film awesome in its unoriginality.

Main Review:

'Ye tera torture mere liye warmup hai' is all the muscle bound Tiger Shroff needs to say. Some people might think the movie is tortuous because it's a mish-mash of all Rambo, Van Damme and Arnold Schwarzenegger movies of the eighties. I loved it because it added Tina from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai to the mix.

Bindaas Copy Karo!

Helicopter rising from below as hero stands on clifftop, hero hiding in the waters by the waterfall, hero killing the last of the group of mercenaries, hero decimating armies of mercenaries toting AK-47s bare hands. All scenes copied from Rambo movies. Sigh. Thankfully Tiger doesn't grunt. He does a half a Hrithik seethe. Like I said, copy, copy, copy. But your counting of copycat scenes fails because the background music challenges you to have one rational thought.

Randeep Hooda shows up as an costume director's wet dream when he wears those drop
crotch cotton pants, beads, scarves, and headgear. He wears a plaited beard to add the shock value and smokes up in public, because, Goa. His name is Loha Singh Dhul or LSD and he's a cop. Obviously a good cop because he says,' Pehle Udta Punjab zameen par laya ab doobte Goa to bachane aaya hoon.' And he's saying this to DIG police Manoj Bajpai who took on the silly role simply because he wanted a weekend in Goa. 

The director of course has no control over the script because they added a policeman called Kute, and lets the 'kutte ho ya kute ho' dialogue occupy more than five minutes. That how highbrow the sense of humor is.

The best of the action scenes is when like Van Damme Tiger swings from a vine with an AK47 decimating mercenaries like cockroaches. The scene is shot so everyone looks like a miniature version of themselves. I rubbed my eyes. Am I back to second grade, playing GI Joe?

Romancing Like Kuch Kuch Hota Hai

Not even close. I mean the heroine dies (I would've pushed her off the Banana boat in the Goan oceans, she's so boring). yes, they try hard to make her interesting: she's a sassy 'creative types' whose best asset is her smile (you're facepalming as the hero lists these qualities). She's a cheerleader, an organiser of the college fest, pushes basketball players in a gym (that could house a small village) and writes her cell phone number on the basketball and tells him she doesn't like stalkers and he could call her but she carries pepper spray. 

Before you wonder why, you are ready to dive into your coffee and never emerge because she confesses: if she says 'i love you' to anyone they tend to die. I like my coffee so i imagine a spinoff horror movie where people die when they hear the words 'I love you'...

Should Karan Johar see the film he's sure to faint to see Disha Patani, the dead heroine doing a Tina style wave and nod to Tiger...

So why give 2 Stars?

For the zabardast acting by Manoj Bajpai (DIG Ajay Shergill) when he squeezes his thumb hard into the bleeding bullet hole he has made in the hero to hurt him more! It's Overacting 101.

For the Hyderabadi lingo that comes and goes as it pleases from poor Deepak Dobriyal's mouth, who has to say, 'Court mein kya lungi mein bhi sach boloonga' with a straight face.

For the two baddies who fight synchronised. Who thinks up of these skills? 

For the facial fuzz on Tiger Shroff, that stops him from looking like a child with a gym rat's body. It also makes him less like his dad, and sometimes it's a good thing. 

For the fact that Tiger does not dance. That boneless thing he calls dance is a tad creepy. He dances at some shaadi, the generic Punjabi song, but the action he performs is great.

For the funniest appearance of Prateik Babbar as a buffed up druggie bad guy. It earns a mention because he's just so bad at anything he does. And it challenges you to not say 'Chutiya' every second he's on screen. Pardon my French.

For making me believe the shot of kidnapped child coming down stairs is actually carrying a gun. Kids in cinema are that scary.     

And yes, I like mara mari, so I will watch another baby Tiger film. I'm a conservationist.