Think of the worst film you have ever watched. Now multiply that by the biggest number you can think of. Baaghi 4 is that film, and somehow even that math falls short of describing what a mangled (pun fully intended) mess this movie is.

However bloody you thought this film was going to be, to whatever extent you assumed this film would be a brain-dead watch, Baaghi 4 surpasses all expectations. Of course, not in a good way. Blood banks in Mumbai and creativity in Bollywood have run dry, both courtesy Baaghi 4.

Granted that the DNA of the Baaghi films is mind-numbing action with very little space for nuance or story. But the fourth instalment is an all-round torture fest with nothing to redeem it. Red paint flows with abandon as humans are killed like cockroaches on screen, but it is you the viewer who bleeds in your seat (my eyes! my eyes!) in a nearly empty theatre.

Swords, axes, chains, saws, daggers, handcuffs, sabres, scissors, spears and even tree trunks are used to mutilate anyone within sniffing distance. In a rare moment in this 163-minute film when any (or all) of the above are not used, Baaghi 4 employs the biggest weapon of mass destruction — Tiger Shroff’s dialogue delivery.

Tiger, like in the previous Baaghi films, plays Ronny. The name remains the same, the character is ‘different’ (cue for more than a pinch of salt). When we first meet him, Ronny is in a coma brought on by a car accident. Seven months later, he wakes up, all buffed up — Tiger wouldn’t be Tiger if he didn’t have a gym in coma land — with a smiling nurse telling him: “Welcome to the living world”. Despite knowing better, the doubt brought on by that line forced me to Google: ‘Are those in coma dead?’ You know what the answer is.

What isn’t remotely alive is the flicker of a story in Baaghi 4. This is all about limbs being yanked off, heads being decapitated, rib cages being torn apart and characters conveniently finding pointed ends of weapons to fall on and die. Everyone in this film somehow looks happier dead than when they were alive. It is after all more acceptable than the slow, painful end you crawl towards if you happen to stumble into this film.

In the first hour of Baaghi 4, Ronny, in the aftermath of his accident, keeps frantically searching for his ladylove Alisha (former Miss Universe Harnaaz Sandhu makes her Bollywood debut). But no one seems to have known or ever seen Alisha, with Ronny being told constantly that he is hallucinating. That includes an outrageously conceptualised and filmed funeral sequence in which Ronny takes on a gang of goons with a live electrical wire right over an old man’s body. Equally atrocious is an outdoor wedding scene in which a would-be bride and groom chop off body parts, while continuously staring at each other in a come-hither way. It is more off-putting than anything else.

If it is any consolation, the first half of Baaghi 4 isn’t as unwatchable as the second. Tiger mopes one minute and maims the next, with Shreyas Talpade whining his way through a thankless part as Ronny’s elder brother. We hope he was at least paid well. Sonam Bajwa makes an appearance as a ‘Latino’ call girl named Olivia and metamorphoses into the desi Pratistha in a ‘Chandara minute’. That is the name of the fictional city Baaghi 4 is set in.

Baaghi 4 aims to be Animal-lite. But that, by no standards, is a yardstick to aspire to. Like Ranbir Kapoor’s Ranvijay in the Sandeep Reddy Vanga film, Ronny lives life on the edge as a bad boy — which means dangling off the parapet as a means of relaxation and lighting a cigar inside a hospital. The common link between the two films is the presence of Saurabh Sachdeva. Sachdeva, somehow, is at once one of Bollywood’s best-known acting coaches and an actor who exaggerates without reason, especially while playing villainous roles.

The interval block introduces Sanjay Dutt as the long-haired and perpetually bloodied antagonist Chacko. At one point, having lost his ladylove in a shootout, Chacko walks into a church and ‘threatens’ God with a meat cleaver, saying: “Undo it, undo it!” It has the same vibe of me asking my daughter to pick up a piece of paper that she has thrown on the floor instead of chucking into the dustbin.

Two out of the previous three Baaghi films were lent some dignity (and acting cred) by the presence of Shraddha Kapoor. But Baaghi 4 is a free-for-all ham-it-up competition. While Tiger has become even worse as an actor (if that was even possible), Harnaaz sports a combined total of two expressions (one each for her double role) and Sanjay Dutt sleepwalks his way through, except when he is downing a bottle or two. The otherwise dependable Upendra Limaye is unbearably loud, taking special joy in uttering lines like: “Jawaani mein hormones bahut harmonium bajaate hain”. Producer Sajid Nadiadwala takes credit for story and screenplay and Rajat Arora for dialogues in this A. Harsha directorial.

Baaghi, as expected, will go on to spawn many more films. As Ronny smirks at some point in Part 4: “Yeh jo tumhara torture hain, woh mera warm-up hain.” You have been warned.

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