I was seven years old when I watched both Sean Connery foil the plan of Auric Goldfinger and Arnold Schwarzenegger mow down, with his biceps bulging, a whole horde of attackers with a machine gun.
And it was only later that I struck upon the crucial difference between Schwarzenegger and Connery, between beefy action movie hunks and the suave and smart-talking secret agents. When it comes to sticky situations or saving the world, the former will use their brawn while the latter will be using their brains.
'Tiger Zinda Hai' does not follow this rule, though. Like 2012's 'Ek Tha Tiger', its titular RAW agent hero is supposed to be a bit of both personalities, both as smart as a secret agent and as muscular as an action hero. However, since he is played by Salman Khan, the brawn frequently takes over brains and it seems that he earned his code name more for physical dexterity rather than intelligence.
That is not to say that such a combination can be an utter misfire. 'True Lies', featuring Schwarzenegger as Harry Trasker, a government agent using both his head and his hands, was a fine example. Yet, while you can have a hero both razor-sharp and Rambo, you also need an effective, enjoyable action film to make the blend work.
Unfortunately, this is not that film.
Directed by Ali Abbas Zafar, 'Tiger Zinda Hai' suffers from the same, plodding and ham-fisted approach that crippled his last film 'Sultan' and prevented it from being a simple, conventionally enjoyable tale of an underdog rising to glory. Once again, the writer director tries to fashion this sequel, to an already insubstantial original, with unnecessarily epic aspirations when a simpler, even cruder B-movie formula, the kind that John McTiernan or Michael Bay can serve so well, could have done. Instead of being the 'shoot-em-up' or 'save the hostages' yarn that it could have been, it is bloated, overlong, filled with sub-plots and characters that are of no significance and (let's be honest) not even half as spectacular as it should be.
Unlike the original, which turned a promising set-up in the first half into a redundant MacGuffin in favour of predictable romance, 'Tiger Zinda Hai' does have a plot, sure. In Ikrit, an alternate reality version of real-life Tikrit, the ISC, with allusions to the real terrorist organisation, and headed by the fearsome yet striking Abu Usman holds hostage a hospital complete with 40 nurses of both Indian and Pakistani ethnicities. Both Langley and New Delhi decide to intervene, albeit with frustratingly deliberate delay, but crusty old RAW chairman Shenoy (Girish Karnad, now looking convincingly weary) knows whom he can trust for the job.
Alas, much of this convenient scene-setting is stretched self-indulgently, with the film shuttling to frosty Austria where Tiger and Zoya, the fugitive spies-turned-lovers from the last film, are happy as they can be, with a son who is, for some strange reason, forbidden to speak much of English. Still, so far, the film is heading in a safe, if surprise free, direction. Thanks to a poorly shot standoff with wolves and a botched mugging (in which Zoya tries her hand at being Jason Bourne), we are told that the pair is still able to kick ass. And so, Tiger is roped in, as he assembles his own team of agents for the dirty field work and plans are laid out with comfortable exposition so that we can rub our hands in anticipation.
Here is the problem, though: when the audience has been told repeatedly that there is only a week left for a heroic rescue mission before the trigger-happy Americans blast away the hospital for good, there should be some tension, or even the semblance of some urgency in the proceedings or how our hero and his allies get cracking. Instead, right from the beginning, Zafar crams in only cliche and digression after another.
The writing is awful. Shenoy wastes almost a couple of days in visiting Langley and Austria to persuade Tiger to choose the mission; so much for him being the head of an intelligence outfit confronted with a deadline. Similarly, the other characters are etched with the most obvious strokes. A young agent in Tiger's team is a Muslim who must carry with him a Tricolour to remind us of his patriotism. The nurses, except for Anupriya Goenka's Poorna, are reduced to whimpering victims. Abu Usman's army is made up of thick-headed men who can get whacked even by local thugs. Paresh Rawal shows up in between as a slimy Indian fixer, the masterful actor hamming it up here atrociously as a caricature who is suddenly, or rather lazily, revealed in the end to be yet another RAW agent.
Introducing potentially interesting characters and plot devices is a very good thing but it can be anti-climatic if they do not amount to anything. For every grand scheme being put in motion, it is infuriating to discover in the end that it built up to nothing.
As viewers watching an action film expected to take our breath away at each turn, we are disappointed with how each major incident suffers either from sloppy action staging or how inconsequential it all feels, to the point of being shoved aside for yet another chunk of melodrama. Living upto the standard trope in any hostage action film, Zafar keeps on hurtling minutiae from scene to scene, keeping track of the days left for the airstrike in the end. It is supposed to generate some suspense but it only shows, each time, just how messed-up things and the whole film are.
Salman Khan, as Tiger, is refreshingly restrained in the role, trading yet again pithy quips with a dry-witted sense of humour. Like in the previous film, he does a fair job of balancing self-assured yet understated confidence with a natural vulnerability; this time around, you can even see the rough edges, as in any ageing hero, but this feels welcome since he comes off as wearier than ever. It is problematic, though, that he is given charge of a team of passable agents who belong to a different film, most probably a 'Expendables' style ensemble rather than a film which should be all about the swaggering hero. And that itself serves to prolong the film to exhausting effect, the narrative morphing awkwardly from what should have been a thrilling rescue film to a tedious commentary on almost everything, including patriotism, India-Pakistan unity, the role of America in ruining the Middle East, illegal immigration with nothing of the subtext being even remotely insightful or deep.
And then there is Katrina Kaif. Playing Zoya, supposedly a tightly wound ISI firecracker, needs at least some zest instead of just stone-faced expressions and slow-motion stunts. Her character also gets the rawest deal in the climax, when she is condemned to the fate of the archetype damsel in distress, destined to be saved from her hulking husband. Sajjad Delafrooz, playing the kingpin Abu Usman, brings welcome menace to the proceedings from time to time but is not given, tragically, the luxury of being even slightly intelligent; for the record, he does not even have a single clue of all the plans being hatched, despite how poorly conceived they are.
Is it all worthless? No, there are some bits and pieces that work. The scorching, ravaged locations are impressive and absorbing, shot slickly by Marcin Laskawiec. There are a few nice moments of camaraderie between the RAW and ISI crews, sharing guns and discussing Shoaib Mallik's present form. The much-hyped action scenes, however, turn out to be staged haphazardly and without the slightest coherence; RPGs are fired every now and then without reason. Also, every time you expect a sensational stunt or explosion on the screen, the film lets you down sorely; a car rotates mid-air like the one in a James Bond film but does not quite turn the whole 360 degrees. In the end, Tiger seems all poised to go blazing with his own machine gun but, rendered in excruciating slow-motion, it all feels vastly unspectacular.
And for most part, amateurish obviousness chomps up the frames. Why does that Austrian shop-keeper read Hindi dictionaries? Why does it take almost half an hour when only ten minutes are left for the attack? Why should Kumud Mishra's hacker Rakesh be there for generating gags for being portly and unaccustomed to guns? Why must Abu Usman be only a victim of Guantanamo when he could have had a different agenda for his reign of terror?
I know that I might be nitpicking but given all the praise and box-office numbers that this film has been collecting, Tiger Zinda Hai' is just a massive letdown for even the most undemanding action movie fans because it is too lame and too long when it could have been fast and furious.
In a nutshell, it is The Spy Movie That Disappointed Me.
My Rating- 2 Stars Out Of 5
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