Tiger Zinda Hai (2017) [Movie Review]


Dir: Ali Abbas Zafar
Starring: Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif
Dur: 2 hrs 40 mins
Genre: Action
Rating: 2/10

The biggest flop of the year perhaps. This film was so big and yet so small in terms of quality that it just amounted to a waste of 2 and a half hours of precious time. Honestly, I didn’t find a single thing worthwhile in the whole film. From start to finish it was one big sham. It probably gave Bollywood action lovers what they wanted, judging from the box office collections (it turned out to be one of the highest grossing films of all time); movie admirers though will probably feel let down.

The film is based on the abduction of Indian nurses by ISIL in 2014. It is the sequel of the 2011 film Ek Tha Tiger. I can’t imagine how good the first film was but it must have been a little better than this to warrant a sequel. I am shocked at the amount the film grossed. It is pathetic cinema at its worst! It takes unreality to a whole different level. I mean, come on, even on the worst day, which intelligence agency reaches out to an AWOL agent who has surreptitiously eloped with an enemy agent and secretly living in the Austrian alps? I mean, this guy they call Tiger, is made out to be a genius who has hacked India’s sophisticated surveillance system and thus keeps abreast of all the latest developments; I wonder if poor Salman even knows that India has a surveillance system! You have to watch it to believe the level they have stooped to make bundles of cash. It worked no doubt, but with what consequences?

I asked a friend of mine about his experience of the film (this was before I watched it myself) and he said that it gives a good message: it preaches Indo-Pak unity. I must add, it does so for purely pragmatic purposes. The main villains are Muslims, so to avoid too much of ‘we are superior’ messages they threw in the Indo-Pak tie up. I mean a Hindu beat Muslim film would surely kick up a riot.

The only reasons, in my opinion, why anyone should watch this film is because they have too much time, too much money, poor taste in film, an empty head and a taste for action without meaning. The 2 rating I gave this was more out of courtesy than anything else. A zero is what it probably deserves.  

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