Movie Review - Tiger Zinda Hai – by Suhel Johar

Tiger Zinda Hai Is Undeniably A Delight For All Sallu Lovers.

When you have a blockbuster precursor, the pressure is really high to keep up the reputation of the franchise. Coming nearly after 5 and half years after the first installment, Tiger Zinda Hai doesn’t have the original director Kabir Khan calling the shots. Instead it’s helmed by the Sultan director Abbas Ali Zafar, probably given to him after the stupendous success of Sultan. Is the sequel as good as EkThaTiger?. The answer is both yes and a no.

Tiger Zinda Hai picks off right where its precursor Ek Tha Tiger left off. Its eight years since the two super spies, Tiger (Salman Khan) and Zoya (Katrina Kaif) left the life of espionage and have adopted a much calmer and ordinary life somewhere in Austria. So, this is a continuation of the original story.  The ex-agent is lured from his tranquil life by ex-boss Shenoy Girish Karnad), the head of RAW. The reason — 40 nurses (25 Indian, 15 Pakistani) are held hostage in Ikrit, where the ISC (ISIS?) has gone into overdrive. A mission only he can nail (obviously). Naturally, the CIA too gets into the act as US soldiers are being beheaded. Set within a seve-day period, TZH has elements of ‘India-Pakistan bhai bhai’, with the RAW and ISI agents wearing their hearts on their sleeves,  each taking turns on delivering discourses and mouthing monologues on unity and humanity. Tiger along with Zoya faces the militants with very minimal weapons and yet achieve the target with their grit and wit. How the dashing duo carries out their rescue operation is what the film is about.

The story is utterly predictable and lacks any interesting twists in the plot. It’s easy to foresee what’s gonna happen next. The film is more about the presentation and the visuals than the story.  Having said that, Tiger Zinda Hai does have its share of merits to compensate its drawbacks. Firstly, the action choreography is top-notch. What else do you expect from the people who have choreographed the stunts in films like The Dark Knight, Inception, Skyfall, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, X-Men: First Class,  xXx: Return of Xander Cage etc. Action lovers would probably experience a high adrenaline. Swag, style and Salman, there is so much of it, but logic, sanity and reason, do not expect much from these areas. You would soon lose the count of scenes where action stunts defy both gravity and logic.

Lot of preaching also happens about the Indo-Pak love which could have been avoided and rather shown subtly using screenplay. The spoon-feeding does harm the effectiveness of humanity angle that the film tried to portray.

Katrina would start out promising but will soon take a backseat. It is actually raining Salman all over the film and even has a universally loved Salman shirtless scene, which is quite a staple for all Salman starrers! Of course, it does get tedious after some time, if one is not a fan of action genre and especially if you cannot digest overtly projected heroism. There are some dialogues by others which try to elevate the already elevated heroism, making it look unintentionally funny. The film does pack some humour in between and that works.

Going by the yardstick of a mainstream potboiler Ali Abbas Zafar scores as the director as well as the writer of the film. Neelesh Mishra who had collaborated as a writer on the original Ek Tha Tiger has teamed up with Ali Abbas Zafar in writing TigerZinda Hai.The cinematography by Polish Marcin Laskawiec is excellent and the stunts too are coordinated well. Vishal-Shekhar’s songs are listless while Julius Packiam scores with his background score.

Performancewise, post Tubelight, Salman Khan is back in his elements. He did what he does the best – entertain everyone. There’s a Salman signature in all the scenes and dialogues in the film. Salman Khan has indulged in a lot of  bhaigiri and dialoguebaazi which will appeal to all his fans. Katrina looks impressive doing her stunts, but when it comes to the rest of the parts, she is boring. She hardly offers anything else. Girish Karnad, Paresh Rawal and Kumud Mishra do their parts well. Angad Bedi and Neha Hinge also manage to make their mark with their characters. Debutant Iranian actor Sajjad Delfrooz as Abu Usman, head of the ISC, impresses with his steely eyes and cool looks.

On the whole, the style quotient in Tiger Zinda Hai never droops for a single second. It may lack the emotion and story depth of EkThaTiger, but there is a high-octane and high-adrenaline action visuals that keeps the sequel Zinda till the end.