There are films that move us and have such an emotional impact on the audience that we think about it long after exiting the cinema hall. Then there are films that totally defy logic or basic common sense, but still manage to induce whistles and claps and entertain the audience. Unfortunately, Sampath Nandi’s Bengal Tiger falls in neither of these categories.
Loud, crass and ordinary – the film completely lacks inspiration in its storyline, dialogues or humour. In the name of a masala entertainer, the makers have brought us a rehashed version of redundant potboilers which have been done to death in Tollywood.
For the first ten minutes of the film, we aren’t introduced to the any of the characters – all we see is a wounded Ravi Teja with a gun, walking on corpses covered in tar. This is followed by a fight scene (which has no connection with the film) and then a song.
It’s only much later that we are introduced to Aakash (Ravi Teja), a casual, brash man who spends most of his time either drinking or playing cards with his friends. His family members try to get him married to bring some order into his life, but the girl rejects him saying she will marry only a celebrity.
A defiant Aakash embarks on a mission to become famous. On his road to fame, he stones a powerful MLA during his speech, gets arrested but wins him over (and even gets a `1 lakh salary). Impressed with his services, the home minister Nagappa (Rao Ramesh) decides to appoint him as a security officer, and his daughter Shraddha (Raashi Khanna) falls for him. Even though Shraddha is set to marry the son of another minister, she manages to convince her father that she wants to marry a self-made man, ie, Aakash. After much deliberation, Nagappa agrees and makes a public announcement offering Aakash his daughter’s hand in marriage. However, in a bizarre turn of events, Aakash rejects the offer saying he’s in love with chief minister Ashok Gajapati’s (Boman Irani) daughter Meera (Tamannaah). What follows makes for the rest of the story.
Like all masala entertainers, Bengal Tiger has multiple characters trying to make you laugh with random acts of buffoonery, numerous fight sequences where the hero single-handedly bashes up a bunch of people, and several songs on cue whenever a heroine appears. The film irritates you with its banality and angers you with its loudness. It seems as if every dialogue in the film is amplified ten-fold. The humour is colourless and makes you cringe. Music and background score by Bheems Cecireleo is decent, while Soundararajan’s cinematography is efficient. Unfortunately, even though the film moves along at a good pace, there’s nothing in it to keep the viewers interested.
Ravi Teja has lost oodles of weight and looks different than before. However, there’s nothing different about this film as it’s pretty much the same thing he has done five years ago. He fights, dances, romances and does everything a hero should do, but his performance is marred by a weak storyline. Both Tamannaah and Raashi Khanna indulge in ample skin show but have little scope to perform. Boman Irani is wasted in the role of an antagonist and makes you wonder why an actor of his talent and stature would agree to do a role like this. Posani Murali Krishna, Brahmanandam and Prudhviraj do provide a bit of comic relief, but the humour largely disappoints.
Overall, Bengal Tiger is just another one of those loud entertainers that Tollywood regularly churns out every now and then. With an age-old formula and a lifeless script, this film is average at best. For those who are still keen on watching this film, I suggest you carry ear-plugs and aspirin with you – ear-plugs for the noise and aspirin for an inevitable headache induced by the film.