Tigers Movie Review: It Is A Very Poor Take On Idealism

Tigers

Starring Emraan Hashmi, Geetanjali Thapa,Satyadeep Mishra, Maryam d’Abo, Supriya Pathak, Vinod Nagpal

Directed  by Danis  Tanovic

Rating: **(2 stars)

Funny, how idealism can never be defeated by compromise. In  fiction  or in  real life, the Man Who Holds His Head High always  emerges triumphant no matter what  the odds.

Tigers , a long-delayed  project featuring Emraan Hashmi  as a Pakistani  pharmaceutical agent who  uncovers and exposes a lethal  multinational  babyfood scam, should never  have been released. It is an unfinished annoyingly dissatisfying take on idealism and  compromise with a finale that  is so tame and sudden,  so compromised  we feel  as scammed  as a movie audience as  the  poor Pakistani mothers who  fed the toxic babyfood to their babies.

Don’t get me  wrong. The film means well. Its  makers’ hearts bleed for the poor impoverished exploited  thirdworld victims who  fall prey  to  multinational avarice. Director Tanovic has some fine actors to champion his cause. Toplining the cast isEmraan Hashmi in what is his bravest  performance  to date, though half the time he  looks perplexed by the propensities  of  a ramrod straight plot about a poor Pakistani individual who takes on the powerful and the  corrupt .He might as well have been Batman without the bat.

 The imminent  terror of being attacked  by powerful  forces never really comes through  . We never feel Hashmi’s  Ayan to be in any real danger probably because the only threatening presence in the entire screenplay is  Adil Hussain playing the sleazythtough  never  quite sinister pharmaceutical executive .Adil  for once, seems lost. We can’t blame  him.

 In  the absence of any real threat the  film  seems like  just another spineless morality tale which wastes  a talented Indian cast, all of whom  try to look and act as Pakistani as  possible. Only Satyadeep Mishra as a conscientious  pediatrician rises above the constant outflow of  janaabs and adaabs.Fine actors  like Vinod Nagpal and Supriya Pathak playing Hashmi’s  parents,  are wasted  trying to look wise and perky.The gifted Gitanjali Thapa as Hashmi’s wife giggles and scowls whenever she can. But the wife is clearly not a  priority in  the conspiracy theory.

Thee quality of uplifting morality is  abysmally  absent  from a film that  has  a conscience  but no spirit.

The narrative has  many gaping  holes which the  director tries to plug with a ferociously Sufiyana  background score . The music and songs are  sometimes  so loud it  obstructs the dialogues.We find ourselves straining to make sense of a heroic  character put in a situation that he has no hold over.

The  Caucasian  cast is shown trying to piece together the  story of Ayan’s idealism which he himself  compromises as brutally as  this  woefully compromised film. What a lost  opportunity!