Baaghi 2 Review: Tiger Shroff Is The Action Hero, Disha Patani Is Charming!

If you had liked Tiger Shroff's actioner Baaghi, starring Shraddha Kapoor as his love interest, you are likely to have bought advance tickets for Tiger's Baaghi 2 that released this Friday. The second of the action series is a better film, going by audience reactions. But let's look at our review of Baaghi 2, which is based on the film Kshanam (which we haven’t watched).

Baaghi 2 begins with the entry of Neha (Disha Patani) and the attack on her. Tiger Shroff enters as the para commando Ranveer Pratap Singh aka Ronny, being shown as the man who tied a stone pelter in Kashmir to a jeep and drove him around. This part taken from the real life incident seems like it has been put in to show what a patriot Ranveer is. But isn’t every army officer?

So, Neha and Ranveer have a romantic history. They dated in college and were about to get married when the girl’s dad (Vipin Sharma) comes in the way. Neha gets married to Shekhar (Darshan Kumar). Four years later, she reaches out to her now army officer ex-boyfriend Ronny, as her daughter Rhea has been kidnapped and nobody is willing to help her. He takes leave from work and comes to the rescue of his former lady love.

The flashback to the romance of Ranveer and Neha looks pleasing on screen, especially since we know how good friends the lead pair is with each other in reality. What complicates the first half of Baaghi 2 is the introduction of a lot of characters. One after the other, we see strong characters of Manoj Bajpayee the DIG, Deepak Dobriyal as Usman the car rental man and drug dealer, Randeep Hooda as LSD, the police officer who looks like a druggie and hippie, Darshan Kumar as Shekhar, Neha’s husband, and Prateik Babbar as Sunny the nasty druggie bro-in-law of Neha.

They are all interesting characters, well written, and we all know these are great actors. But the audience is left confused how each one will fit into the puzzle. The punches and dialogues of each character are good, to the credit of the writer Hussain Dalaal. But it all does not add up too well in the film. Baaghi 2 has too many sub-plots with and keeps one confused. It adds to the mystery of the missing girl but gets a bit tedious towards the end when one just wants to know who did it.

Nevertheless, what happens before the interval is what makes the movie interesting. It could have had less twists and turns, though. We have Abbas Mustan’s films for that. Baaghi 2 seems like a psychological thriller in the first half. Watch it to know what it turns out to be.

Tiger Shroff has long been hailed as the new big action star of Bollywood, and has been doing movies to put that across. He has ample support from action heartthrob Hrithik Roshan, who Tiger worships and also tries to emulate (or so it seems). With Baaghi and now Baaghi 2, Tiger Shroff cements his position as the go-to man for younger action stars in Bollywood. Director Ahmed Khan has made Baaghi 2 like a prelude to Tiger Shroff’s big film – the remake of Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo. The action scenes in Baaghi 2 are similar to that of Rambo and also Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Commando, Salman Khan’s Tiger Zinda Hai and countless action films in B-town have been inspired by.

Tiger has what Ranveer Singh, Ranbir Kapoor, Varun Dhawan, Sidharth Malhotra and Rajkummar Rao do not have - sheer brawn with his good looks, height and martial arts training. What these popular actors, at least four of them, as well as Tiger's mentor Hrithik Roshan do have is acting skills. Tiger looks like he will improve upon those with each film. Let's hope so, as this man has a lot of fans among the young.

Disha Patani and Tiger Shroff, the rumoured real-life couple who starred in the music video Befikra before Baaghi 2, show great chemistry. They look cute together and act their emotional scenes out well. After Baaghi 2, people will like to see a full-fledged love story between these two. That is the part the audience could relate to on screen, and also Tiger’s moments with his onscreen daughter.

With Baaghi 2, Disha Patani again shows that with her charm she can challenge some of the younger heroines coming up in Bollywood. The actress just needs to choose some meatier roles now. However, there is no doubt about her comfort level with Tiger on screen.

As mentioned earlier, the supporting characters have done a great job and add meat to the film. But actors like Manoj, Prateik, Deepak and Randeep deserve much better from writers and filmmakers!

Verdict: Baaghi 2 is a good watch on a relaxed weekend, a film to take your family to. It is a nineties-style action thriller, with a love story and a cute little girl. Baaghi 2 merges emotions with a mystery and lot of good action scenes. It will make its money but we don’t know yet if moviegoers will prefer to go in for Rani Mukerji’s Hichki this weekend or go in for the young romance of Tiger and Disha.

Rating: 3/5.