Baaghi review: Tiger Shroff and Shraddha Kapoor's love story is a bore
Baaghi is a film which suffers from an identity crisis. It wants to emphasise on guru-shishya parampara, celebrate the funny thing called love, focus on the significance of being a rebel with a cause, be a Kerala tourism commercial, showcase the Indian style of kalaripayattu and provide some comic relief. But it fails to be any of these well.
Director: Sabbir Khan
Cast: Tiger Shroff, Shraddha Kapoor, Shifuji Shaurya Bharadwaj, Sudheer Babu, Sunil Grover
Ratings: 
In his second film, Tiger Shroff continues to play to his strengths which is be Bollywood's Bruce Lee. Flying kicks, back flips, splits, punches, gymnastic-like moves, the actor convincingly displays his array of fighting skills in what's a mash-up of epic Ramayana, cult Indonesian action flick The Raid: Redemption and even a bit of The Karate Kid.
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Tiger is tailor-made for Ronny, an arrogant martial arts enthusiast, who is sent to Kerala by his sick father to train in the ancient style of kalaripayattu. On his way to Kerala he is smitten with a bobble-headed, annoying young woman in Siya (Shraddha Kapoor), an aspiring actress. A poorly scripted, childish love story begins in which the couple spent most time flashing their teeth in rain. The Ravan in this saga is Raghav (Sudheer Babu), another martial arts practitioner who also fancies Siya and wants her at any price. So begins a fight fest which kicks off in Kerala and heads to Thailand after Raghav kidnaps Siya and holds on the top floor of a building.
The most memorable bits of the film are the ones where Guruswamy (Shifuji Shaurya Bharadwaj), chief of the kalaripayattu centre, grooms Ronny to be a disciplined fighter and better apply his athletic prowess. But there is only so much of hand-to-hand combat viewers can see. A speech-impaired child is thrown in to raise the emotional quotient of the film. But the manipulative move backfires as the child, who utters only two words - Ya Ya - throughout the film, irritates until in the second half he is replaced by another aggravating handicapped character -Sanjai Mishra as a visually-impaired and totally unfunny taxi driver.
Baaghi is a film which suffers from an identity crisis. It wants to emphasise on guru-shishya parampara, celebrate the funny thing called love, focus on the significance of being a rebel with a cause, be a Kerala tourism commercial, showcase the Indian style of kalaripayattu and provide some comic relief. But it fails to be any of these well. Unlike its inspiration The Raid, Baaghi doesn't even evoke a sense of dread for its hero who is on a one-man mission to beat an army. Here Ronny eases through the floors with ease.
If there's one reason to watch Baaghi, it is for Shroff's endless zeal and commitment to the gruelling physical demands of his part which includes balancing his body on two fingers. Now only if he can hone his thespian skills.