Tiger 3 Movie Review

This time, it’s personal, goes the film’s tagline. This sums up the plot of the film in one line. However, it isn’t all as simple as that. Aatish Rehman (Emraan Hashmi), is a family friend of Zoya (Katrina Kaif). Aatish mentors her after her father’s death when she is in her teenage and later becomes her handler in the ISI. Aatish is everything Zoya is not. She’s patriotic and not a zealot. She believes in being human, rather than callously sacrificing everyone to achieve your ends and believes in being a soldier and not a terrorist. She learns of his plot to kill a Pakistani General on foreign soil and as a result, he is imprisoned after a court martial. His wife and unborn child too is killed in the line of duty. A bitter Aatish swears revenge, which he successfully executes but Tiger (Salman Khan), manages to foil it in the climax.

In its own way, the film also bats big time for democracy. It tells you that Pakistan would be better off if it had a civilian government, which controls the army, and not the other way around. A government which respects its own populace and is ready to broker peace with India would be much more beneficial to the region overall than one which is openly hostile to its neighbours and which doesn’t believe in democracy. Tiger and Zoya, in effect, save the Pakistani PM from a coup and basically help impede an all-out war between the two countries.

Noble thoughts aside, Maneesh Sharma and his writers have made things laughably easy for both the hero and the villain. Salman Khan is able to enter Afghanistan and Pakistan as easily as taking a leisurely stroll in a public garden. Emraan Hasmi, despite being a disgraced army officer and ISI operative, is able to get unconditional support for his dastardly acts with neither the ISI, nor RAW, having a clue about it. He virtually runs operations all over the world, with seemingly unlimited budgets and evades capture till the very end. He wants to become the new PM of Pakistan, though he has no political affiliations whatsoever. And being a court martialled officer, doesn’t have the overt support of the army either. Despite that he’s virtually able to bring a country to a standstill. One keeps waiting for the true puppet master to show his face but that isn’t the case.

The film, in nutshell, is a set of slick action sequences loosely stringed together. The money shot of the film is Shah Rukh Khan’s entry as Pathaan. Tiger had rescued him in the film Pathaan and here he returns the favour. The two superstars have a gala time bonding during the costliest action scene of the film. Their banter brings the much-needed relief to the film, which is otherwise devoid of humour. Katrina Kaif has a much-talked about towel-fight scene with acclaimed martial artist and stuntwoman Michelle Lee, and the climax fight between Salman and Emraan is well-executed as well. Bhai, however, doesn’t take off his shirt in the film, something that’s going to be a sore point for his fans. There’s even a Salman and Katrina fight scene, which too is stylishly executed. And *Spoiler Alert* Hrithik Roshan too makes a cameo as Kabir (from War) at the end, fighting a bunch of thugs in a sequence inspired by Marvel’s Hawkeye show, Ronin. This verily is the icing on the cake and boldly spells out YRF’S intentions about investing in an extended spy universe.

Emraan Hashmi enjoys every moment of being the antagonist and makes his presence felt. He isn’t intimidated by Salman’s presence and makes for a good villain. Salman Khan looks more brooding and menacing here than the first two instalments. His mere presence is enough to send fans into raptures. Katrina Kaif and Salman Khan make for the perfect screen pairing. They have danced the dance many times and know each other’s moves inside and out. There’s a sense of camaraderie apparent in their reactions, which comes from long association. It’s good to see them together on screen and we would love to see them in an old-fashioned love story. Katrina has done all that’s required of her and more and looks all set to kick some butt in future as well.

Watch the film if you're a hardcore Salman Khan fan. The morning shows, even on a Diwali Sunday, were all near-capacity and that tells you something about Salman’s aura.

Trailer : Tiger 3