My brain is just… scrambled eggs. It’s 1:37 in the morning and I just finished Baaghi 3 on Disney+ Hotstar and I think I need to go stare at a blank wall for an hour to reset. My ears are ringing. Not from the good, cinematic bass, but from the tinny, maxed-out sound of my laptop speakers trying to contain an explosion that probably shouldn't exist in the first place.
I literally leaned so far back on my couch at one point I almost did a full-on backward somersault. It was during the first big fight scene. Ronnie just… appears. And suddenly twenty guys are flying through the air in slow motion. It's not physics. It's not choreography. It's a human-shaped pinball machine and Tiger Shroff is the ball. I couldn't look away. My body just recoiled in a mix of "Whoa, cool" and "What is happening to the laws of nature?"
And then… Syria. Because of course. Why solve a problem with logic when you can just invade a small country? The movie just gives up on any semblance of reality and just throws everything at the wall. Tanks. Helicopters. Entire armies. And there's this one moment. This one, beautiful, stupid, perfect moment that is going to be burned into my brain forever. Tiger Shroff. PUNCHING. A. TANK. He punches a tank. And the tank… it dents. It dents! I paused it. I had to. I just stared at the screen and whispered "what?" to my empty room. I laughed. I was impressed. But now that I'm typing this… was that the peak of cinema, or the dumbest thing I've ever seen? I don't know. I think I'm just embarrassed for the tank.
Speaking of brothers… it kinda reminded me of my cousin Rohan. We must have been like, ten. We built this epic pillow fort in the living room, claimed it as our sovereign nation, "Fort Awesomeness." My mom told us to clean it up, and Rohan, the "older brother," stood on the couch and declared, "They will never take us alive!" We then spent the next hour throwing pillows at imaginary invaders until my dad came in and just sat on the fort. Ended the war instantly. Never mind. That's a better story than this movie.
Honestly, the best part of watching this on Hotstar was the pause button. I used it a lot. I paused to check if this movie was supposed to be a comedy. I paused during the songs to scroll through my phone because they felt like they were from a completely different, much more boring movie. I paused to get a glass of water after a character survived a blast that would have vaporized a small building. The comfort of my couch is the only thing that got me through this. The ability to just disengage for a second, to remind myself that this is just pixels on a screen and not a documentary about a man who can deflect missiles with his abs.
The plot. Was there a plot? Something about Riteish Deshmukh's character being a crybaby cop who gets kidnapped in Syria, so his supercop brother has to go save him. That's it. That's the whole thing. Riteish Deshmukh spends about 80% of this movie with tears streaming down his face, and I get it, I'd be crying too if I was stuck in that movie. And Shraddha Kapoor is there! She's a character, I think. Her name is… Siya? Maybe? She shows up, she fights a little, she looks concerned, she has a song in the rain… and then she's just kind of gone for the entire third act. Did she get a flight home? I don't know. The movie doesn't care.
And yet… I didn't turn it off. I watched the whole thing. Every single, glorious, nonsensical second. Why? Because it's just so committed to its own absurdity. It doesn't wink at the camera. It presents the idea of a man fighting an entire country with a straight face. I thought I hated it, but now that I'm typing this, I think I kind of respect it? It's pure, uncut, unfiltered "masala" entertainment. It's not good. But it's also not boring. Not for a second. My brain was confused, my eyes were wide, and my thumb was hovering over the "stop" button, but it never pressed it. Was that a good decision? I'm still not sure.
Okay, my thoughts are just a jumble of explosions and questionable tactical decisions. I need to sleep. I'm probably going to dream about punching kitchen appliances.
6/10. - meh
-ishaan