Tiger Zinda Hai review: The new Salman Khan-starrer is eminently watchable

Tiger Zinda Hai is a watchable potboiler with action for ages, a successful lead pair and some good, well-placed music

The franchise may have changed directors, but that does not take anything away from Ek Tha Tiger’s sequel, Tiger Zinda Hai. In keeping with the title of the film, this one is all about Tiger, virtually every moment of its nearly three-hour run. Luckily, Tiger is enough to keep the viewer going — just about enough.

Let’s start with the obvious disclaimer. This is a Salman Khan film and it comes with all the usual bells and whistles in a film that features “Bhai”. Khan can still impress in an action film and look very good while doing it. The film provides some brilliant moments of pure action with guns blazing and things exploding and bodies dropping left, right and centre. If you’re here for that, it’s a great place to be. The action sequences in the film left little to be desired and are certainly a highlight of Tiger Zinda Hai.

Khan’s RAW agent, Tiger, is joined by Pakistani ISI agent, Zoya (Katrina Kaif). She has very little to do, but that little is great to watch. The chemistry the two actors share is delightful to behold, but even more delightful is Kaif’s solo action sequence. She definitely likes her action sequences.

The rest of the cast — Paresh Rawal, Angad Bedi, Girish Karnad, Sudeep and Anupriya Goenka — do a good supporting job. But Sajjad Delafrooz shines in his role as Abu Usmaan, the radical leader of ISC (the film’s version of ISIS). His unshakeably deadpan expression lends a sense of pervading dread and mania to his character. Perhaps the only weak link in the cast is the Americans, who come across as camp and unconvincing. 

The film also scores on, well, its score. The background music by Julius Packiam keeps the tempo up and lifts moments with tension. The fact that the film has less than four songs is a bonus since Bollywood seems to suffer from a compulsive need to squeeze in as many dance numbers it can in a film. This time around, the song and dance is limited to one sequence (“Dil Diyan Gallan”) while the rest of the songs act more as accompaniments to the scenes. It’s a relief to see that the story does not cut away to some exotic location for the sake of a dance number.

While Tiger Zinda Hai is enjoyable fare, it has its problems. For example, super spies seem to travel by magic. Karnad’s Shenoy travels from Delhi to Langley and back in a matter of frames while Tiger makes it from Austria to interior Iraq in the blink of an eye. This will irritate sticklers for logic throughout the film. But then fans forgave Game of Thrones Season 7 for the very same flaw earlier this year, so why not a Salman film?

Another flaw is its editing. While it does not bore at any point, the film is decidedly long at two hours and 41 minutes. The slo-mo action effect interspersed in action sequences pall quickly and could be easily done away with. But the film manages to use foreshadowing effectively in the first half, daring to scare audiences into thinking some of the main cast may meet their maker sooner rather than later (no, I’m not giving anything away). 

In the end, it’s a watchable potboiler with action for ages, a successful lead pair and some good, well-placed music. Oh, and Khan does manage to go shirtless here but, for once, for a plausible reason rather than to strum his guitar or to wash a bus. Also, can we have more films with Khan interacting with kids? He seems to enjoy it as much as these scenes entertain the audience.