Evading constant gunfire from all sides, he runs through the narrow bylanes of an Iraqi town called Ikrit and in one swift motion, plonks himself on the saddle of a horse. As masked men in high-powered bikes chase him through the city centre, he manoeuvres his ride in such a way that the bikes, on either side, are thrown off in perfect sync, with all of them landing in a gaping hole where an exploding bomb takes care of them. He looks behind, stares at the mayhem he’s caused, gives half a smile and turns to a new enemy in front of him. Yes, Tiger zinda hai. And he’s back with some serious swag.
Tiger Zinda Hai — powered by a crowd-pleasing act from Salman Khan — is the most paisa-vasool ride of the year. Eyeball-grabbing locales to jaw-dropping action, this Ali Abbas Zafar outing is an ‘event film’ — it brings back Salman the superstar, shirtless and sarcastic, and moulds his RAW agent into a superhero of sorts — just like Ek Tha Tiger five years ago. Zafar, who joined hands with Salman for Sultan last year, steers the star vehicle with all the elements that make a Bollywood blockbuster — patriotism, romance, some insane stunts and a tight plot that doesn’t let your attention waver even for a minute.
Opening eight years from where Ek Tha Tiger left off, we see Tiger (Salman), a RAW agent, and his ISI agent wife Zoya (Katrina Kaif) living the life they always wanted — in anonymity — somewhere in the Austrian Alps, with their young son who’s simply called ‘Junior’. You know that Tiger and Zoya, though they spend most of their time chatting about bhindi and old Hindi songs, haven’t lost any of their skills — he packs off some snarly wolves without getting a hair out of place; she’s quick to flatten a gang of muggers at the local supermarket.
But their life is quiet only till RAW comes calling at Tiger’s doorstep after a team of Indian nurses working in Iraq are taken hostage by terrorist organisation ISC and its self-styled leader Abu Usman (Sajjad Delafrooz) — a plot point gleaned from a real-life newspaper headline. That means super agent Tiger is back in business, carefully picking his Mission Impossible-style team and infiltrating into Iraq to rescue the nurses. But, Tiger’s been told one half of the story — there are some Pakistani nurses among those held captive and pretty soon, Zoya lands up — team in tow — to make it a ‘Hindustani-Pakistani’ joint venture. It’s a race against time for them, for the US plans to launch air strikes on the town but is holding off, rather reluctantly, till the rescue mission is carried out.
If Ek Tha Tiger focused primarily on the Tiger-Zoya love story, with the romance angle overshadowing their daredevilry as agents, Tiger Zinda Hai, thankfully, is an out-and-out mission film. Whether it’s masquerading as a worker at a local oil refinery or smuggling himself into the hospital where the nurses are held hostage, Tiger has his eye on his goal. And with Salman as the fulcrum around which the film functions, director Zafar doesn’t let go of the opportunity to set up one action set piece after another — drone attacks to suicide missions, car bombings to hand-to-hand combat sequences. Stylishly shot (by Marcin Laskawiec), the action is top-notch, with Tom Struthers, the man behind Christopher Nolan biggies Inception and Dunkirk, keeping you riveted to the screen.
But don’t go looking for logic in Tiger Zinda Hai; there’s very little of it here. The basic plot — a mishmash of Akshay Kumar’s Airlift and the Malayalam film Take Off — is given a larger-than-life spin to showcase the superstar in the middle.
And though the word ‘Insaniyat’ is repeated so many times that you almost think it could be surrogate advertising for Salman’s Being Human label, the pull of the Indian and Pakistani flags flying together at the end does bring a lump to your throat — and a trigger for a loud roar from the audience.
What it lacks in plot and logic, Tiger Zinda Hai makes up with its spot-on casting. The ensemble cast — Paresh Rawal and Girish Karnad to Kumud Mishra, Angad Bedi to Anant Vidhaat, with a special mention for quiz wiz Siddhartha Basu — is at the top of its game. Sajjad Delafrooz as the baddie Abu Usman makes a sparkling debut.
Emotions still don’t sit pretty on Katrina’s face, but give the girl a gun and watch her rule the world — that slo-mo set piece with Zoya going bang-bang to the beats of Tera noor is one of the best moments of the film.
And then there is Swag se swagat, where she has the Royal Bollywood Tiger for company, who alone is the reason why you should spend your weekend with Tiger Zinda Hai. Sexy stubble to shirtless swagger — the film is a classic Salman Khan show. Can you hear the roar?!
Tiger Zinda Hai is paisa-vasool because... Tell t2@abp.in
