Bade Miyan Chote Miyan Movie Review: Akshay and Tiger's star power saves the nation and this predictable affair

Saving the nation has become the favourite pastime of Bollywood actors and a convenient template for directors to fill the frame with as many actors as possible. If you are planning to watch Bade Miyan Chote Miyan (BMCM), make sure your tolerance for predictability, uncompromising defiance of physics and time, loose logic, rough-sounding-but-not-so-rough villains, and invincibility of lead characters, haven't yet reached its saturation point.

Director: Ali Abbas Zafar

Cast: Akshay Kumar, Tiger Shroff, Prithviraj Sukumaran, Alaya F, Ronit Roy, Manushi Chhillar and Sonakshi Sinha

BMCM starts off with a template terror attack sequence where India's security system gets stolen by an aggressor who casually makes a video call to the army high command to inform of their incompetence. The scene then shifts to another template scene, with the Indian Army chief Azad (Ronit Roy) saying, "This psycho can only be stopped by these two psychoes" referring to our protagonists. We are shown the past heroics of court-marshalled officers Firoz (Akshay Kumar) and Rakesh (Tiger Shroff), who need to be brought back to fight bad guys who have sworn to destroy India. What follows is Firoz and Rakesh decimating anything and anyone that comes in their way, including subtlety and common sense. The India-hating Haqqani extremists, who have held Indians hostage demanding their leader's release from Tihar prison, are seen enjoying Amitabh Bachchan and Govinda's dance in Bade Miyan Chote Miyan (1998). The tribute could have been better. Shortly, the gun-wielding extremists chase the gun-wielding Indian army operatives, apparently waiting for a cue from the director to start firing.

Full marks to director Ali Abbas Zafar for adeptly writing a screenplay that moves from one elaborate action sequence to another, reducing the necessity to emote, which results in passable performances from Akshay and Tiger. Manushi Chhillar as Officer Misha is wooden yet impressive. On the other hand, Alaya F as Parminder or Pam delivers Gen-Z lines which overstay their welcome. Prithviraj can even utter the most banal line like, 'I will strike India with terror', with utmost conviction but his performance is pulled down by starkly uninventive dialogues. Ronit Roy as Azad is the textbook example of a rule-abiding army man who has 'martyr' written all over his face. Sonakshi's Priya delivers a meta performance, as a character who is clueless and helpless in most scenes.

Despite no exceptionally written characters, there are some engaging ideas that saves the film from being an excruciating experience. Things get gripping and interesting when the narration gets time-bound. The interval twist is a banger. In films that are high on brawn, the simpler the narration the better, and the rest is taken care of by brilliant stunt staging. To that end, Zafar's storytelling competently lays out how the lead characters need to get from one point to another, and the obstacles they will be facing along the way.

As I mentioned earlier, the story is woven in between elaborate action sequences. The downside of these lengthy sequences is the fear of losing track of where and how the sequence started and what has transpired. Another issue that sticks out like a sore thumb is an utter disregard for time. In this ticking time bomb of a story, characters take time for granted. The events that unfold in BMCM happen within a span of three days and people travel from China to India and then to the UK, from there back to India. Do they teleport? I will not frown if the answer is yes since it comes from a movie that talks about AI, metahumans and cloning. But it is hard to accept the fact that they do all the travelling and still find time to save the country. To add to this, five minutes gets stretched into forever, all for the convenience of the characters. The cherry on top is that even Chinese missiles move in slow motion, giving enough time for Tiger to guess the password and activate 'Karan Kavach', the Indian version of the Iron Dome.

Bearing all these troubling aspects in mind, Akshay and Tiger bring a lot of charm and firepower when they come together on screen. BMCM is enjoyable if you are a fan of Siddharth Anand's actioners and the Mission Impossible franchise. The film is strictly for those who wouldn't mind a wafer-thin storyline with racy stunt sequences. The Chinese and Pakistani antagonists react flippantly on finding that their mission to destroy India has failed. This is a no-go zone for fans who like originality and surprises in their films.