Bade Miyan Chote Miyan movie review: Akshay Kumar, Tiger Shroff film is a complete snoozefest

There’s the kernel of an idea somewhere in the length of this 2.44 hour long feature: of how AI can be used to clone a soldier and turn it into an invincible machine. But you have to dig deep into this mess to find it, covered as it is with gobbledygook surrounding a ‘Karan Kavach’ which can protect India from Pakistani and Chinese missiles. Only Bollywood can be brave enough to label the Chinese outright as our enemies.

Could it be that some AI app secretly overtook the writing, and made it into squeezable paste, with zero flavour? Otherwise how can you turn these two heroes– Firoz ‘Freddy’ (Akshay Kumar) and Rakesh ‘Rocky’ (Tiger Shroff) — into such dull clones of themselves? And Prithviraj Sukumaran, capable of so much, should sue someone for being made to strut about like a Darth Vader-type figure, in leather cape and mask, minus the sabre.

If only the film had fully embraced its cartoonish qualities, it may have become enjoyable. But it forces us to take it seriously while throwing about such dialogues as ‘aankhon se right swipe karogi kya’? Speaking of which, this is the kind of film where characters take time to spout full dialogues before shooting someone. Alaya F, as an IT whiz, whizzes about, saying ‘so dope’, and ‘sorry Uncle’ ; addressing Tiger ‘a hot GI Joe’, and Akshay as Uncle: a smarter film would have built these into real laughs.

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But she also does have the best line in the film, when she gets to tells Tiger – ‘biceps ki jagah brains ka istemaal karo’. That lands. As does this one, which could be a good descriptor for the whole thing: ‘hamaara ego hamaare talent se bada hai’. This, good people, is an actual line in the film. They should have censored this unfortunate dialogue, not blurred the middle finger our Bade and Chote miyaans are fond of sticking. Nope, not kidding.

Bade Miyan Chote Miyan movie cast: Akshay Kumar, Tiger Shroff, Prithviraj Sukumaran, Ronit Roy, Sonakshi Sinha, Manushi Chillar, Alaya F, Manish Chaudhri
Bade Miyan Chote Miyan movie director: Ali Abbas Zafar
Bade Miyan Chote Miyan movie rating: 1 star