Stunt sequences on the big screen have never been so drearily monotonous. Bade Miyan Chote Miyan, directed and co-written by Ali Abbas Zafar, has an abundance of explosive action. The series of loud and flashy set pieces leaves no room for anything else at all. Bade Miyan Chote Miyan It's all clones, clichés and cacophony. They compete with each other to be seen and heard above the din in a cauldron in which gross excess is the norm.
Akshay Kumar, who is clearly the Bad Miyan of the title, Captain Firoz aka Freddy, goes equally meta. Iss khel ke sabse purane khiladi hum hain (I'm the oldest player in this game), he says to the villain, a rogue scientist-entrepreneur (Prithviraj Sukumaran), as they face each other. Freddie's right. The khiladi act is indeed an unbearable purana. There is no more water in it. It is pressed dry.
But Bade Miyan Chote Miyan operates under the belief that star power can help a sloppy script paper overcome the consequences of a glaring lack of substance. Captain Freddy is the kind of man who thinks about himself. He will make Captain Rakesh aka Rocky (Tiger Shroff), his younger buddy, believe that the latter would be a dead duck without the experience and maturity that the veteran army man brings to the partnership. The latter, who won't roll over without a squeak, insists he's better off as he is: fast and furious.
Fast and furious is what Bade Miyan Chote Miyan is. It's also terribly foolish. It rushes from one chaotic sequence to the next without so much as a breather, trying to connect one major confrontation to the next using weak, terribly contrived devices.
Bullets fly, bombs explode, vehicles go up in flames and helicopters, tanks and armored vehicles riot in a blurry series of events so exhausting and egregious that it numbs the brain to the point where you begin to wonder if there have actually been gray cells. went into the making of the film.
The story is astonishingly hollow. Freddy and Rocky, two crack soldiers, are court-martialled and dismissed from the army for insubordination. It isn't until much later in the film that the audience understands why. But before we get to that point, we see Freddy working in an oil mine in the desert and Rocky fighting a fire and rescuing a trapped cat in Delhi.
Even before that, a lengthy action scene is set up to let the world know why the two men are considered such a feared pair of extraction specialists. The Indian ambassador in Kabul and his family are captured by terrorists. Freddy and Rocky ride their horses and storm into the camp.
By the time the duo finishes the mission, the shelter has been razed to the ground. And on their way out, they also kill a wanted terror mastermind who has been evading the CIA for years.
Eight years later, Freddy and Rocky are called back to the thick of the action when the villain (we see the gruff-talking man hidden behind a metal mask in the film's opening scene, in which he ambushes an army convoy) announces that he plans to is to use a powerful new weapon to destroy India.
Freddy and Rocky's boss, Major Azad (Ronit Roy), is certain that the two men are still the best in the business, but an old friend of theirs has other ideas. And that's where the clones come into the picture. The actioner itself is an unimaginative recreation of many films about a villain bent on destroying the world.
The film is about watan (nation), vardi (uniform) and zameer (conscience), the three things that real soldiers are staunchly committed to. We will achieve victory, but without giving up the principles that guide us, the army top says. There's more artifice than intelligence in a movie that arms its villain with the power of artificial intelligence. He pushes the idea of mind-controlled, indestructible soldiers to fight brainwashed terrorists. When his plans are thwarted, he decides to prove his point.
In a predominantly male world, a girl fights alongside the two soldiers. She is Captain Misha (Manushi Chhillar), who has a few stray action scenes of her own to prove her mettle. Another girl shows up a little later in the film. She is Paminder “Pam” Bawa (Alaya F), the nerdy one who pretends to be a dumbass. She is involved in the mission to crack complex computer codes.
And of course there's Sonakshi Sinha, an extended special appearance in which she plays a senior army officer who goes beyond the call of duty and volunteers for an experiment to save the nation from impending danger.
Amid all the boring action that follows, Bade Miyan Chote Miyan tries very hard to be funny. That's not necessary. There's something immediately comic about an ambitious blockbuster that's projected as God's gift to the genre, but sways aimlessly on a wing and a prayer.
One example should be enough. Pam and Rocky rush to Waterloo Station for a dangerous excursion. Along the way, the first one puts the finishing touches to her make-up. Are you going to a party, Rocky asks. When I die, I want to make sure I look good, Pam replies. That's the idea of humor in this film.
The actors don't stand a chance here. The two male leads weave their way through the film, Prithviraj Sukumaran tries in vain to make the nonsensical passable and Sonakshi, Manushi and Alaya are, at best, movable parts of the set.
Bade Miyan Chote Miyan offers not a single piece that could be considered a saving grace. Sitting through it is a slog without respite. Even if you are Akshay and Tiger fans, think twice.
Form:
Akshay Kumar, Tiger Shroff, Prithviraj Sukumaran, Alaya F, Sonakshi Sinha, Manushi Chhillar and Ronit Roy
Director:
Ali Abbas Zafar