FORMULA FOR THOUGHT
It has been four years since Oscar-winning filmmaker Danis Tanovic finished Tigers, his third film set outside his home country, Bosnia-Herzegovina. Its subject explains part of the delay. Set in Pakistan and inspired by true events in the mid-1990s, Tigers looks at the David-versus-Goliath battle between an ethical medical sales representative, Ayan (Emraan Hashmi), and the multinational food company he accuses of putting profits before lives. The drama released on streaming platform Zee5.
Tanovic and his co-writer are keen to highlight the pluck needed to make a film that exposes the malpractices of the powerful. So the film portrays Ayan recounting his story to filmmakers and a lawyer in London via video link so they can eliminate the loopholes that can cause legal trouble. The novel approach allows the writers to initially reveal the name of the actual company—Nestle—only to settle on Lasta. In another touché move, one of the activists supporting Ayan is named Maggi (Maryam d’Abo), which happens to be Nestle’s most popular product in India and one which a few years ago came under the scanner of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India for allegedly violating safety norms.
The title refers to the roaring drive Lasta salesmen are expected to possess to achieve sales targets, and initially Ayan’s mission is to make a Lasta baby out of every newborn. Then an earnest doctor (Satyadeep Mishra) informs him that the Lasta infant formula is killing babies from impoverished families who mix it with unadulterated water. Ayan’s boss Bilal (Adil Hussain) tries to silence him while his wife Zainab (Geetanjali Thapa) and father (Vinod Nagpal) compel him to do the right thing. With solid performances from Hashmi and the supporting cast, Tigers shines a light on the whistleblowers who speak up despite threats and forsake it all to hold the guilty accountable. It’s a film with the right intent and messaging, but the straightforward narrative doesn’t enrage or shock. Also, the tangential story of media self-censorship told through the documentary filmmakers from a German channel following Ayan distracts from the main theme of corporations’ continued exploitation of the poor in developing countries. This is most evident in the interspersing of real footage of scrawny kids and the 1978 audio of US Senator Edward Kennedy questioning the company’s practices. That’s where Tigers truly shows its teeth.