Baaghi Review

Baaghi

Director- Sabbir Khan

Starring- Tiger Shroff,  Shraddha Kapoor and Sudheer Babu

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 such 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 nor 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. There is a 20 minute bone cracking dishoom dishoom climax that turned me deaf, which wasn’t too bad. I would prefer deafness over my ears being stabbed with  atrocious mind numbing dialogues like ‘Jab tak tumko pata chalega…tab tak bahut der ho jayegi.‘

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.

 

 

 

 

Fan Review

Fan

Director- Maneesh Sharma

Starring- Shah Rukh Khan

Rating- 2.5 stars

Shahrukh Khan in a song-less, romance-less, heroine-less movie directed by the poet of middle-class  Maneesh Sharma seems like a perfect recipe for a hatke film. I watched the film in happy anticipation and enjoyed it too. The first thirty minutes at least.

The movie started with Gaurav Chanda’s (The Fan) award winning performance at a local superstar sitara competition which was executed so well that I sat there smiling, enjoying the mohallah, the middle-class maahol that Maneesh so beautifully weaves into his films.

 

Fan seemed like it would be SRK’s best film in last five years. Wait. What was I comparing it to? Chennai Express? Dilwale? Happy New Year? Jab Tak Hain Jaan? It’s almost like calling Rakhi Sawant smarter than Poonam Pandey or Sherlyn Chopra.

 

I realized I spoke too soon. The film that looked promising started to give a few ‘that’s-a-bit-much-bro’ moments that soon turned into, ‘haha-kuch-bhi’ moments and by the climax of the movie, logic had stabbed itself in the eye with a blunt knife leaving you miserable with the improbability of the situation.

Check this out-

Gaurav is the imposter to tarnish Aryan Khanna’s image. His devious plans no matter how improbable are delicious. You want to know what his next move would be. But the sequences lead to rather extreme irrational decisions taken by Aryan.

Gaurav’s bad behavior is caught on camera and misread as superstar’s to disgrace him. Wait, the camera also catches Aryan at another location. Logic would prompt to reveal the footage and clear the air, right? Wrong. It’s a Hindi film.

Here Aryan Khanna plans to settle scores with Gaurav Chanda personally, sans secretary, sans security, sans common sense too.

Minute by minute into the film, you wonder;

Why would a popular actor take a cab to his home and argue with the security guard to get into his own house?

How can a fan know a star’s itinerary so well?

How can he get his number?

How can he get to his house? Vandalize it? I am sure you have a lot of money. You can afford CCTVs. You can buy common sense too. Report him to the police. Have some logic. Pay your writer. Hire one if you haven’t.

There is a clash between the star and his fan. As a viewer I would like to be empathetic towards one, judge the other, take sides, and get emotionally engaged. I couldn’t quite decide. Honestly I couldn’t even care. All I wanted was them to say sorry to each other, bury the hatchet, shake hands and be good boys again. Trust me ‘sorry’ is indeed one of the most important words in the film.

Shah Rukh Khan gives a decent performance. The starry twinkle in Gaurav’s eyes when he first sees Aryan Khanna, the excitement in his voice when he first speaks to him makes you go all aww. Gaurav is still the easier part to play. Aryan Khanna is the trickier one. They have used his real life footage, gone into his personal space. How do you disengage and distance yourself when you play a character loosely based on your life? SRK keeps it subtle, however I wish Aryan’s stubbornness and arrogance were further explored, both in writing and acting.

Fan is implausible, unreasonable and unconvincing. And RJs don’t EVER speak the way they do in Hindi films, even if they are presenters in London. Argh.

WHAT THE RATINGS MEAN:

5 stars: Loved it. (This could make to top ten movies you must watch before you die!)
4 stars: Liked it. Recommend it. (This will help you sound intellectual and give you stuff to add at water cooler conversations.)
3 stars: Didn’t hurt. Watch it once.
2 stars: It put me to sleep. Watch it if you are an insomniac or a newly wedded couple. Winks!
1 star: Do I even need to explain this?