‘Baaghi 2’ review: one man army

Nothing matters other than Tiger Shroff in a film that bores as well as amuses with its inanity

Tiger Shroff and Disha Patani during promotion of their movie ‘Baaghi 2’.

We shall not flog an already dead horse so no telling you how bad Jacqueline Fernandez’s oversexualised but entirely plastic version of ‘Ek do teen’ is. At the other end of the female presence in the film is the soft and coy heroine Neha (Disha Patni) who assertively states, “I carry pepper spray”, “I hate stalking” but willingly gives in to the boy who has been relentlessly chasing her.

Another character—a righteous Muslim representation called Usman (who talks about how his community is as much about kurbaani as biryani) refers to his wife as the “Russian cutlet’ who cooks and rears his kids. Then there is the fauji hero Ronny (Tiger Shroff) who comes to the civilian world on leave from nationalistic duties to help Neha, also his ex-sweetheart, find out her kidnapped daughter. Ronny turns the entire police station in Goa upside down when one of the cops makes a pass at her. While some of the viewers might get thrilled at how Ronny breaks the teeth of the sleazy cop (all in close-up), I was wondering at the film patronising women on the one hand while talking about saving their izzat on the other. Actually all of it does fit in perfectly in the all-male universe of Baaghi 2.

Baaghi 2

• Starring: Tiger Shroff, Disha Patni, Manoj Bajpayee, Randeep Hooda, Prateik Babbar, Deepak Dobriyal, Darshan Kumar
• Run time: 144 minutes
• Storyline: Army man Ronny goes all out to help his ex-sweetheart Neha trace her kidnapped daughter Rhea

In these days of nationalistic frenzy much respect is shown to the army; cops can be bad, armymen can’t. So our young soldier, even in the midst of the mayhem he unleashes at the police station respects the tricolour and the cop’s hat—he won’t let them fall on the ground, will catch them mid-air when they are being flung around, along with human bodies.

Then there are some severely asinine jokes cracked at people’s surnames—Kute and Kale— the invisible cop called Bosco, who keeps crying at the drop of a hat. In the name of a story you are served some randomly strung together scenes, which, at times, can get quite amusing in their inanity but mostly bore you to death. Then there are some easy throwaways. The minute you see a character wearing all white, you know he is all black inside. A bunch of very good actors are made to do strange roles with Randeep Hooda, Manoj Bajpayee and Prateik Babbar gamely acting out the caricatures they were turned in to on screen.

Shroff does seem to have grown-up. He seems to have acquired a more macho personality and a faithful fan following among the young viewers. His body seems to have acquired more muscles, bronze and elasticity. There are innovative ways in which his shirt is torn as he goes about being Rambo-like, destroying the enemy. He goes buff for the torture scenes but dunks into the bathtub fully clothed, shoes included. The masala mayhem is choreographed as much as the song-n-dance and he is agile and athletic in both. But there is still a lot of catching up to do on acting chops. The impassive face stays though the affectations—pouts, dreamy and moist-eyed look—have reduced considerably.

At the risk of it being a spoiler I must also point out the most significant departure that the film makes from Hindi films of yore. Normally in our films the cops come in late, when the hero has managed to wipe out the villain and his cronies. Here cops are present throughout, it’s the army that arrives at the fag end, only to tell the hero that “the war is over”. So is the film, thankfully.