Tiger Zinda Hai

The climax is an ambitiously mounted sequence where Salman and his coterie of soldiers battle an army of Islamic terrorists in a hospital complex. There are a lot of machinations and manipulations that lead up to this point, all having to do with them finding a way to rescue hostages and escape the hospital in a clever way. Because there are too many enemies, so you can’t just take a gun, open the door, and start firing. Right?

That is exactly what Salman does at the end of the climax. He takes a gun, opens the door, and starts blasting. In full slo-mo glory, the shells falling at his feet, the enemies dropping like flies. If you aren’t numb already, it may beget the question of why he didn’t just do this earlier; putting ridiculously contrived Machiavellian schemes aside.

It’s that kind of stupidity that gives the movie away. I have no problems if this is a movie where he does what he does. But it becomes silly when the makers then proceed to give rational logic with needless plotting that amounts to nothing at the end. A little consistency will do it for me.

The sequel is a big budget extravaganza that travels from India to Austria for no good reason – except that they wanted to show the money they had to blow – before settling in to Iraq for a hostage situation. It is an impossible situation that only Tiger can salvage. He come out of retirement, assembles his crack team in seconds, and the mission is on.

The only time when there is a sense of crisis, urgency, and emotion is in fact when Katrina Kaif briefly takes over the proceedings. A nicely done action sequence that shows her taking down an evil sheikh and his troops to save a harem of girls is impressive thanks to her physical pyrotechniques, performed with energy and precision that only committed training can impart.

For the rest, it is the Salman show. He smiles wryly, and cracks funny lines as he fights his way to the super boss. He tries to own the show with his superstar persona, even as his missus easily steals the scene whenever she is around. From his team, Paresh Rawal hams it up as a secret RAW agent while Kumud Mishra remains thoroughly watchable as middle aged, a god-fearing hacker.

The film will undoubtedly light up the box office spark that Salman has missed in the last few films. For YRF films, India’s premier production house, it seems Mission Accomplished. Time for #3.

Hindi, Action, Colour