Pakistan has two famous leading characters of Hindi cinema as its sons-in-law — Tara and Tiger. The Gadar films have always depicted Pakistan as enemy Number 1, a country that Sunny Deol’s Tara Singh must infiltrate at any cost, with both lung power and hand pump, to rescue his wife in the first film and his son in the second. The Tiger franchise, on the other hand, has envisioned an India-Pakistan bhai-bhai scenario, catalysed by our resident Bhaijaan Salman Khan as Tiger, with the highly unfeasible idea of its intelligence agencies R&AW and ISI joining hands to fend off a common enemy. That has, of course, come on the back of the romance between Tiger, an Indian agent, and Pakistani agent Zoya (Katrina Kaif), who chose each other over their respective countries in the first film and have then spent two more outings defending their nations.
In Tiger 3 — the most unimaginative title in the Tiger franchise, whose first two films were named Ek Tha Tiger (2012) and Tiger Zinda Hai (2017) — Tiger has to come to the rescue of his “sasural” as he puts it. Pakistan, as history has often pointed out, is forever susceptible to a military coup. And that is precisely what Tiger (and Zoya) race against time to foil. India is but a side player in the Tiger 3 business, with Tiger fighting against the neighbouring nation’s homegrown villains in a skirmish summed up best by our wry leading man as “saas-bahu ki tu tu main main”. Like Pippa, released last Friday, Tiger 3 rides on a sort of saviour complex, with Tiger enlisting the help of his fellow Indian agents to save Pakistan from its internal strife. The Pakistanis end up betraying each other, but the Indian agents, loyal to both country and Tiger, do not.
This is the kind of soft nationalism that has formed the backbone of the Tiger films, padded up by seeti-maar dialogues and jaw-dropping action scenes. Both are present to some degree in Tiger 3, but not in the kind of wholesome way that one has come to expect. In fact, apart from a few well-executed action blocks — Tiger’s entry scene, like that of the first two films, packs in enough thrills, a single shot of the keffiyeh around his neck and a peek of his eyes being enough to make the 7am crowd go berserk —
— the first half feels oddly dull and extremely bloated (which could also function as a descriptor for Salman). Also, given that Tiger 3 comes right after Pathaan in the highly ambitious Yash Raj Films Spy Universe, there is a been-there-seen-that feel — action to drama, plot twist to end song — that comes across as predictable.
The film starts off — in Marvel/ Avengers parlance — as Zoya’s origin story, but then strangely relegates Zoya, save for a few action sequences expertly executed by Katrina in the way only she can, to the background with Tiger coming to the forefront once again. To be honest, Salman feels sluggish, and in some scenes, completely disinterested, showing the spark that Tiger has come to be known for only in a few moods and moments.
One of that is during that much-touted cameo — the one that will deservedly bring most to theatres even if nothing else does — that also emerges as Tiger 3’s unique selling point. If Tiger came to Pathaan’s aid suspending himself upside down from the roof of a train in Pathaan, Pathaan, man-bun in place (that haircut he had promised himself at the end of Pathaan has clearly not happened), arrives in a freight crate functioning as a cable car, and injects some much-needed adrenaline into the film. This is 10 minutes of total bang-for-your-buck fare, with Tiger and Pathaan trading witty one-liners and self-deprecating jokes. It is in the company of Pathaan that Tiger truly comes alive, with Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan delivering both stupendous action and sparkling comedy.
That also includes a hat-tip to Sholay’s popular bike, a leitmotif for the indefatigable friendship between Jai and Veeru. While the exchanges between the two are the funniest in the film, Anckur Chaudhry’s lines don’t pack in as much punch, nor are they as self-aware as Abbas Tyrewala’s dialogues were in Pathaan. But this is, undoubtedly, the best bit of Tiger 3, and we really cannot wait for Tiger and Pathaan to face off in Tiger vs Pathaan, which goes to shoot in January.
Salman as Tiger
That apart, there are just a few other scenes that make the Tiger 3 ride worthwhile. A few of them belong to Zoya, especially the action scene in the towel in the Turkish hamam. It is always more fun to see Katrina doing action than Salman, and that holds most true in this film. Katrina’s physicality and personality, attitude and agility organically lend themselves to high-octane fight sequences and she glides through them with both ease and grace. Emraan Hashmi, introduced to the franchise as its new antagonist, is given an interesting character but his Aatish Rehman isn’t afforded the freedom to develop beyond a point. Emraan, to his credit, manages to make Aatish a flesh-and-blood character whose dastardly actions in the present are informed and influenced by a tragic moment in his past.
And then, of course, is the other much-talked-about cameo in the end credits, with War’s Kabir — Hrithik Roshan pops in for a minute or so — engaging in an action sequence whose world-building will remind one of the face-off in Tokyo between Hawkeye as Ronin and Yakuza in Avengers: Endgame. It is a moment worth the wait, but seems more of a prelude to War 2 than a tying up to Pathaan or Tiger.
Other than that, all of Tiger 3’s attention is on Salman, whose super agent has now become more of a Bond and Bourne, Hunt and Reacher prototype than one who stands uniquely on his own. The fact that the character has lost some of its teeth is perhaps best summed up when he tells a man he is raining blows on: “Main Diwali pataakho se nahin, mithai se manaata hoon”.
The absence of edge has more to do with Maneesh Sharma’s direction. Sharma — whose filmography includes the likes of rom-coms like Band Baaja Baaraat and Shuddh Desi Romance, with him only coming close to what can be termed semi-gritty cinema in Shah Rukh’s Fan — lacks the vision and finesse to marry action to plot as effortlessly as his predecessors Kabir Khan and Ali Abbas Zafar did and something that Siddharth Anand nails almost everytime.
Aditya Chopra and Sridhar Raghavan’s story — as is wont in most spy films across the world, with a few exceptions — borrows too much from films in the genre. There is the nuclear launch codes riff from Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, the vault infiltration from just about any other spy film and a dozen familiar genre tropes.
As a result, Tiger 3, despite being well-intentioned as a whole and engaging in parts, doesn’t quite live up to what’s been expected of it, with its ‘Mission Timepass’ subplot — Revathy is parachuted in as Tiger’s boss, a nod to Bond’s M — being a descriptor for a large part of the film. This outing is testament to the fact that the Tiger franchise definitely needs a dose of adrenaline. But as Tiger says: “Jab tak Tiger maraa nahin, tab tak Tiger haara nahin.” Bring on Number 4, but make it better please!
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