Baaghi movie review: Great action movie let down by poor screenplay

Director: Sabbir Khan

Cast: Tiger Shroff, Shraddha Kapoor, Sudheer Babu, Sunil Grover, Sanjay Mishra

The first few minutes of ‘Baaghi’ has an instant likeable factor, when director Sabbir Khan begins narrating the story. This however, is with reference to the technical aspects of the film. The cinematic colour grading, the setting of the scenes, the way they merge into each other, the background music, it appears to be a well crafted film.

But as we move further into the film, everything seems to fall apart like a pack
of cards. But first, let's begin with Tiger Shroff! He can go wrong with many things, but not his action scenes, because as an actor that's his strength. His fight scenes on the streets, hand-to-hand combat, flexibility and ability to convince the audience as a hardcore action hero, is commendable. There is a lot on sincerity in his performance.

Ronny (Tiger Shroff), who is a skilful fighter but lacks formal training in the art, is sent down south to train under an expert (guruji). Ronny however finds it difficult to deal with the strict code of conduct and goes through some tough times. The training school specialises in Kalaripayattu (a martial arts style which originates in Kerela) also has a home grown hero Raghav (Sudheer Babu), who plays a villain in the film. He has his eyes set on Sia (Shraddha Kapoor) and goes to great lengths to make her a part of his life. This leads to a love triangle, which ultimately gives way to misunderstandings, revenge and high octane fight sequences between the rebels to fight for their love.

Sia is depicted as a girl whose happiness has no bounds when it rains. Her initial scenes with Tiger Shroff will remind you of the song 'koi ladki hai jab woh hasti hai'. She has few lines that sound very cliché, and in turn, takes the audience’s interest away from the scene. Bringing in lines like “mei koi aisi waisi ladki nahi hoon” (I’m not like the other girls) or “naino se baand chala raha hai na” (The arrows that you are striking from your eyes are not going to work on me), appear very out of place in those specific scenes.

Another flaw that sticks out in this film, is its song and dance sequences. As the golden rule in Bollywood’s rule book says that every film must have a song for entertainment. However, here the makers could have kept it out as it appeared to be inserted forcefully.

Credit should be given where it’s due. Director Sabbir takes special effort to flesh out supporting characters in the film played by Sunil Grover and Sanjay Mishra, who provide comical relief. It's not just the funny dialogues, but Sabir manages to bring out a varied range in the performances of these other actors.

Overall, the film isn't a let down because of the output by all the actors but because it gets dragging on many occasions. Tiger and Shraddha show no signs of playing their parts with any disbelief. Their chemistry is also appealing. But it is the shoddy execution of the story, which doesn't hold you throughout the film. It almost feels like the director tried to put in a lot of elements, but found it difficult to put it all together while editing the film.

Tiger Shroff shows a lot of improvement and appears more confident, since his debut film ‘Heropanti’ by the same director. All in all, action sequences are fun to watch, but when too much action is accompanied with poor screenplay, it becomes unbearable, despite the lead actor’s ability to kick butt like a pro.