Baaghi Movie Review: Packs A Punch, But Lacks A Story

In his debut movie Heropanti, Tiger Shroff had wowed everyone with his martial art skills and with his second film Baaghi, the cub has roared impressively. However, the lack of a strong screenplay and the absence of crisp editing, makes Baaghi a tad disappointing watch.

When Sia (Shraddha Kapoor), an aspiring actress gets kidnapped by smitten crime lord Raghav Shetty (Sudheer Babu), the producer of the film and Sia's father rope in her estranged boyfriend Ronnie (Tiger), a martial artist, who had been incidentally trained by Raghav's father (Shifuji), to rescue her from Raghav's den in Bangkok.

Armed with his martial art skills and a righteous rage, Ronnie sets off to rescue the damsel in distress and vanquish the bad guy (remember Ramayana, anyone?)

Like mentioned earlier, Tiger is impressive as hell in his action scenes and the boy is pure poetry in motion. Though the actor lacks the rugged charm of his father Jackie Shroff, we forgive Tiger for this only because of his action sequences, though the youngster needs to work on his dialogue delivery and his grim stare. Shraddha Kapoor is easy on the eyes, but her 'cute girl-next-door' persona can get a bit irritating, especially because it doesn't come off as natural. If that was not all, the chemistry between the lead pair is not convincing at all and the two look more like platonic pals than passionate lovers.

Sudheer Babu, who plays the antagonist Raghav, has an impressive screen presence and a physique, but he is bereft of a menacing aura that every villain requires. Someone like Rana Daggubati or even Vidyut Jammwal would have been an apt choice to play the antagonist in this film. Sunil Grover (small screen's Gutthi) evokes a few laughs with his role as Sia's unscrupulous father while Sanjay Mishra as a Bangkok cab driver, who helps Ronnie, is utterly wasted.

Many scenes in the film will remind you of Hollywood action flicks- the first half of the film where Ronnie trains, is straight out of the Karate Kid series, while the second half, when Ronnie launches an one-man offensive on Raghav's den, will bring to mind the Indonesian film The Raid.

Where the film falters is in its lack of a powerful screenplay and the absence of crisp editing. The film stretches on and on and makes you impatient for the climactic action sequence. The dialogues too are very unimpressive and the director's insistence on trying to maintain an ideal balance between a love story and an action flick, makes for a disastrous cocktail. The songs are utterly forgettable and seem to be included for no apparent reason (except for the high on testosterone Baaghi anthem, which we did not mind at all).

Had Baaghi been an out and out action fare, we are sure the film would have been much better. However, notwithstanding the faults in the story, Baaghi will warm the cockles of any action junkie's heart.