Baaghi 3 Movie Review: Two-and-a-half hours of boom-boom and rat-a-tat!

Baaghi 3 …Sab Khairiyat

Baaghi 3

Starring Tiger Shroff , Shradha  Kapoor,Ritesh Deshmukh, Jaideep Ahlawat

Directed  by Ahmed  Khan

Rating: ***(3 stars)

Okay admit it.Are you in this for a strong message and  a sturdy storyline? Then you are in the wrong theatre. If it’s  not too late,  go exchange your ticket and watch Thappad  or Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan. Because that’s where all the drama is.

If you are in this for  the action, then you are  in the right place. Baaghi 3  has outstanding stunts  by  the Fearless Nadia  of  modern  times Tiger Shroff. Unlike the  Stunt Queen of  the Silent Era there is nothing  even remotely  silent about Tiger.And  hell, he’s  got  better muscles than Nadia for sure!

Ploughing through two-and-a-half hours of  boom-boom and  rat-a-tat , smashed bones and  gnashing teeth I was struck by how  much fluency  Tiger brings to the ferocity. I just didn’t want the  stunts to stop. Could Tiger please  not do the dialogue-baazi? It’s like   Sania Mirza playing cricket.

The stunts  are this time way superior to what we’ve seen  in the  previous  two Baaghi films. This time director Ahmed Khan has given over the choreography to  others. He focuses on the action.

And the results are…potent and lethal. The rugged  hinterland(Serbia serving as  Syria) shot by cinematographers Santhana Krishnan and  Ravi Chandran(evidently 2 can  do it better than 1)  is virgin-fresh. Wish the same  could be said about the  plot which is  dog-eared and mildewed. Kid Brother Ronnie(Tiger) loves his  Bhade Bhaiyya Vikram(Ritesh Deshmukh) to death.

“People cross all limits for their loved ones. I’ve crossed  the border,” Ronnie snarls through his gritted teeth. I wish he  would just get on with the action instead of  indulging in the  dialogue baazi which is so  clogged with jingoism , we could trip over the  rhetorics while picking our way to the top of the plot. It’s like the legendary Helen.Every time she spoke  I wished she  would just dance.  Every time Tiger speaks Farhad Samji’s  cheesy  lines  of  designer-pluck, I wish he would  just fight.

The  search for the  missing  brother  kept me watching most of the way , although I knew the plot was ripped off from Raj Kumar Santoshi’s Ghayal. Originality is  not  a priority when family is at risk. Speaking  of  family, Tiger’s  Disha Patani shows up for a well-choreographed dance  number. Tiger’s killer dance moves keep you enthralled. His romantic track with Shradha Kapoor  is  half-baked and  a distraction.Shradha seems to have walked out of the Saaho sets straight into this  Syrian sojourn  suffused with stunts and nationalism.

 The  terrorist –villains are played by assorted actors of  unquestionable  capability saddled with the  job of  making global terrorism look like a formula for  thrills. Let’s just wait for the day Bollywood decides to replace  terrorism with  caronavirus as Villain No.1. Baaghi 4, perhaps?