Too much body, too little dialogue
BAAGHI 2 (Rebel 2). Directed by Ahmed Khan.WithTiger Shroff, Disha Patani, Manoj Bajpai, Randeep Hooda. At Nu Metro, Canal Walk. manner is disappointing.
On receiving a call from his distressed former girlfriend, he rushes to her aide in Goa. She has been attacked and her daughter has been kidnapped.
The problem is that everybody, including her husband and the police, maintain the girl doesn’t exist and is a figment if her imagination as a result of the trauma she experienced in the attack. So an intriguing premise is sidelined by too many unnecessary characters, dull sub-plots and too many songs that detract from the pace and add to the length.
In the final showdown, the trite script borrows heavily from First Blood, the first Rambo film, down to similar characters and even using the same dialogue.
I’m all for well choreographed action sequences, but watching Shroff dodge every bullet from villains who stand almost head-on is more than silly.
When he eventually gets shot at at close range by the chief kingpin, does the guy finish him off ? No. He uses the opportunity to explain in detail the facts surrounding the disappearance of the little girl, something astute audiences would have picked up early into the film, before getting taken out.
While Shroff is well-equipped in the muscles department, is a good dancer and performs his stunts admirably, his acting skills are not up to the mark.
Disha Patani as his former girlfriend is also weak and they have no chemistry.
It’s left to thespians Manoj Bajpai and Randeep Hooda to chew up the scenery with suitably over the top performances, the latter as a cop incessantly taking selfies, even with his superiors, who has no qualms smoking weed on the job, dresses as a hippie and bears the initials LSD. He has an assistant who breaks down in tears whenever he’s reprimanded, but one never sees him on screen.
It’s just another strange aspect of a film that’s a real letdown, despite an interesting story.
The less said about the item number featuring actress Jacqueline Fernandez, who simply flexes her well-toned muscles and does what appears to be a gym workout to a reprise of the hit song Ek Do Teen, originally by the more talented and exceptional Madhuri Dixit in the film Tezaab, the better.