Rating – 3 stars on 5
When the Bhai of Bollywood reprises his role as Tiger, you know there will be tons of fireworks on screen. Tiger 3, starring Salman Khan in his iconic role and Katrina Kaif as agent Zoya, released for Diwali and the audience hoped for a dazzling festive release. Taking off from previous Tiger film directors Kabir Khan and Abbas Ali Zafar, Maneesh Sharma dons the director’s hat for Yash Raj Films’ Tiger 3.
RAW agent Tiger is now married to Zoya (Katrina Kaif), a former ISI agent, and they seem to be living a happy life in Austria with their son, Junior. Tiger is called into action by RAW head (Revathy) to rescue one of their own, Gopi (Ranvir Shorey), from Pakistan and he does it with aplomb. But the geopolitical struggle between India and Pakistan is still volatile and Tiger learns that there is a mole in RAW. Meanwhile, former ISI agent-turned-terrorist Aatish Rehman (Emraan Hashmi) is on a revenge spree and he draws Tiger and Zoya into this fight. What does Aatish Rehman plan to do? How are Tiger and Zoya involved? Do the couple finally save the day?
As expected, Tiger 3 is packed full of action moving swiftly from one situation to the next in the first half. Along with Salman Khan, the audience also globe-trots across Pakistan, Austria, Russia, India and Turkey, watching him perform daring, electric stunts and snazzy hand-to-hand combats. Katrina Kaif has also performed a riveting action scene in the first half with Asian American actress Michelle Lee. The second half of the film brings in some other characters of the Tiger films and the highly-talked about Shah Rukh Khan cameo. The scenes between Salman and SRK are one of the highlights of the film but the first half definitely scored over the second.
While this YRF spy universe film will be a treat for Salman Khan fans, for the general audience it is strictly timepass. The narrative doesn’t connect emotionally – there’s not much Salman- Katrina chemistry on screen and none of the characters really display emotion. At the age of 58, Salman Khan looks good and performs well, and Katrina too aces the action scenes. But that’s all there is – action. Emraan Hashmi as the antagonist was OK though Tiger 3 should have ideally had a more terrifying villain.
Tiger 3’s screenplay is penned by Shridhar Raghavan but this espionage drama falls short. The movie is just not intriguing enough to keep you hooked and the music by Pritam is a let-down. While the cinematography by Anay Goswamy is good, the editing by Rameshwar S Bhagat could have been better.
Tiger 3 is a total masala film and Salman Khan, once again, proves why he is a rockstar. As mentioned, this film is a treat for Bhai fans.