Ek Tha Tiger

Who doesn’t love a good action movie?  Especially a long anticipated one.  I remember seeing billboards for Ek Tha Tiger all over Queens. I love me a good Bollywood action movie, mostly because the action part is usually so overly exaggerated that it makes it laughable and Oh buddy! does this movie deliver on that. 
Salman Khan plays the lead spy and he spends a good portion of the movie in short sleeve dress shirts riding around on a scooter.  This must be a whole new version of cool spy because, last time I checked, no 35 year old man ever looked cool riding around on a scooter; anyway, back to the actual spy activity.  Khan infiltrates this world renowned scientist’s house to find out some top secret information because, you know, isn’t that always what they need to find? Anyway cue the ridiculous action scenes! and I mean flying kicks, bombs going off in mid air and this spy must have the ability to fly because he defies gravity. 

No spy movie, of course, would be complete without a female counterpart.  Enter Katrina Kaif.  She makes being a female spy look like a walk in the park!
There’s a scene where she is being chased by numerous police officers, at least 20, because, typically, you need 20 armed men to take down an unarmed waif thin woman.  So she’s kicking and punching her way down 12 stories and, mind you, the entire chase her hair is flawlessly curled.  She doesn’t even have any fly aways! To make it worse, she’s wearing this frilly white top and, would you believe it?  She walks away from a hand to hand combat with the shirt completely intact! not a stain or tear, no, not even a sweat stain but, hey, like I said, if she did have any of those normal things then it wouldn’t fit in with the theme of ridiculousness. 
The rest of the movie follows suit with more unrealistic fighting and a very forgettable love story. The ending scene has to have car/motorcycle chases, explosions, gun fighting and a random plane.  Khan has to time his motorcycle jump to launch himself onto a plane that Kaif is flying. 
I forgot to mention that he gets shot in his arm but, you know, that’s pretty much the equivalent of a paper cut to him, so it doesn’t affect his performance at all. I’d be rolled up on the floor crying for my mother (I guess that’s why I’m not a spy).   

Overall it was truly a great fake action movie, well at least in my opinion it is but for some, like my good friend Samiksha Sheth, it is merely a “time pass movie”.

Article by the Diner's very own Bollywood reporter Kiva Ashby