‘Baaghi 4’ movie review: Tiger Shroff disappoints in this corny actioner

During the pan-Indian wave, one thing that has reached Bollywood shores from the South is the toolkit of the Iron Age. Armed with cleavers, these days our heroes are slashing and slashing hard. It is not always when the stakes or tempers run high. It is just for the hack of it. Bored of firing gunshots from a distance, now they wield an axe and a hammer to grind the opposition to pulp. With an adult certificate becoming a sign of misplaced maturity, the makers can play with as much blood as they want. There is nothing like excess anymore. If Ranbir Kapoor can do it, how can Tiger Shroff be far behind?

In this fourth installment of the action franchise, Ronny (Tiger) is madly in love with a girl named Alisha (debutante Harnaaz Sandhu), who the world feels doesn’t exist.

Love means expression of emotion, and as we have discovered in the last few years, Tiger mostly preens, frowns, and leaps. To make up for the limitation, the writers have come up with an excuse. The hero is suffering from hallucinations. Tiger takes it as an opportunity to indulge in a freestyle wrestling version of acting. He looks here, there, everywhere, but doesn’t make a connection.

There is a dialogue where the hormone and the harmonium feature in one line. It is this tuning between hormone, harmonium, and hammer that makes a film, where the plot is wafer-thin and style is everything, work. But Tiger exasperates, and Harnaaz, the latest beauty pageant winner to try her luck in Bollywood, preens and pouts in the name of performance. When it doesn’t work, the camera shifts focus to slits in her costumes.

Loosely based on Tamil film Ainthu Ainthu Ainthu, Baaghi gets bogged down during the buildup. As Ronny continues to look for Alisha, the screenplay stagnates, and one wishes someone could scroll up. Harsha uses trite tropes like a brother (Shreyas Talpade) scene, some comic relief with Sudesh Lahiri, and the entry of a madcap cop (Upendra Limaye), but none of it lifts the screenplay.

Coming from the house of Nadiadwalas, one could see the extravagance in set design and action choreography, but it seems the makers have saved on the writing budget. The scenes work out like music videos.

It is only in the second half when the mystery of the missing girl unravels that the narrative finds its groove and the background score starts to penetrate the senses, but the big reveal is so simplistic that it is not worth the wait.

Amidst all the manufactured mayhem in this crude universe, Sanjay Dutt is the saving grace, bringing gravitas to the larger-than-life villain Chacko, who challenges Jesus Christ. Sonam Bajwa is not bad either as the beautiful distraction planted in Ronny’s life. In the limited screen time she has, Sonam lends dignity to a loosely written character. And how can one miss Saurabh Sachdeva’s menacing presence?

If you want C-grade Hollywood in Hindi and celebrate chakoo in Chacko’s chest kind of visualisation, this tripe fest is for you.

Baaghi 4 is currently running in theatres