Tiger zinda hai

Just about anything goes in the name of Bhai. The film is a far-fetched, brazen and unapologetic paean to the stardom of Salman Khan, showcasing him as the ultimate action hero. Right from his ‘entry’ scene complete with the trademark scarf and his one-on-one with a pack of wolves to him single-handedly taking on an entire army of terrorists, a la Rambo, with his shirt customarily off. He looked stocky to me, his face seemed tired and bloated. Some of the sequences felt tacky for the huge money invested in the film and Bhai’s body double did show through in some scenes. In fact, I thought Katrina Kaif, as the Pakistani agent Zoya, and Salman “Tiger” Khan’s wife, with whom he stays in a third country — Austria — was far more agile on her feet and got the more thrilling and well choreographed action sequences. Why did film turn her prowess into a sampler of and passing nod to ‘women’s empowerment’! But everyone around me in the theatre was mandatorily thrilled, even when Bhai was doing nothing. So be it.