Bade Miyan Chote Miyan: Tiger, Akshay Cut to Size by Dull, Deafening Action Drama

Director: Ali Abbas Zafar
Writers: Ali Abbas Zafar, Aditya Basu, Suraj Gianani
Cast: Akshay Kumar, Tiger Shroff, Prithviraj Sukumaran, Manushi Chhillar, Alaya F, Sonakshi Sinha

Duration: 164 mins

Available in: Theatres

I’ve always had a soft spot for Ali Abbas Zafar, a prolific director with some very watchable Bollywood titles (Bloody Daddy, Jogi (2022), Sultan (2016), Bharat (2019), Tiger Zinda Hai (2017) and Tandav (2021)) to his credit. Narrative flaws aside, his action choreography has been slick and entertaining, only a tier below peak-Siddharth Anand or peak-Kabir Khan. Let’s just say Zafar has been on the brink of making a good film. At long last, he breaks that “almost” streak with Bade Miyan Chote Miyan. 

Unfortunately, the 164-minute slog suggests he was also on the brink of making a bad film. Because this one is bad in all the Big Dumb Action Movie ways – there’s not an original idea, shot, stunt, word, character and twist. Inspirations range from War (2019) and Pathaan (2023) to The Dark Knight (2008), The Italian Job (2003) and Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011) (don’t ask). Worse, the action is dull enough to make a guy two rows ahead scroll through Hinge on his phone while a bike collides with a helicopter in the film. He swiped right on the wrong screen.

Plotting With Clichés

Bade Miyan Chote Miyan stars Akshay Kumar and Tiger Shroff as courtmartialed army captains Freddy and Rocky who’re summoned back to rescue India from a mysterious masked villain (Prithviraj Sukumuran), a chap best described as Batman imitating Bane on cough syrup. Like any self-respecting villain, Batman-Bane hijacks a top-secret defense weapon called Karan Kavach in the Northern Himalayas and promptly records a video warning the bosses at High Command of an impending terrorist attack in a funny voice. 

But we know he’s really up to something because the next scene features Captain Misha (Manushi Chhillar) being told by her source in Shanghai that war is imminent before a bullet makes his head plop into his bowl of hot and sour soup. The meeting could’ve been an email. Somehow, she’s in Delhi the next morning to tell her bosses that a madman with an army of self-healing “better humans” is on the loose. 

In case you’re wondering, the title of the film exists because it can (or because the same production company was behind the famed 1998 comedy, Bade Miyan Chotte Miyan, starring Amitabh Bachchan and Govinda). To justify it, Freddy is nicknamed Bade Miyan and Rocky Chotte Miyan because a previous mission involves them freeing Indian hostages from an Afghani village in which all the militants were busy watching the David Dhawan movie. What if they were watching Main Khiladi Tu Anari or Hero No. 1 (Would Rocky’s nickname be No. 1?)? . Never mind that one of the hostages tells them to go kill an absconding terrorist so that Freddy (whose real name is Firoz) can pump bullets into the man who mocks the hospitality shown towards Ajmal Kasab in prison – and declare, “India won’t waste biryani on you”. 

More Complications and Challenges

The rest of this film is a blur that features, in no particular order, supersoldier clones; an NRI scientist with a personal vendetta; a robot named Eklavya; a human hard drive; a talkative villain whose punchline is “I am…the best!”; a bespectacled-but-trendy Gen Z tech nerd (Alaya F) operating out of Oxford and prefixing every sentence with “Guys!”; Rocky dropping terms like “obvio”, “rager”, “bitcoin” and “Instagram” to flaunt his youth opposite boomer Freddy; a masterplan to deactivate a protective sky shield so that neighbours China (represented by a “Mr. Wong”) and Pakistan (a Mr. Naved who shakes his head in the climax) can attack India together; Akshay Kumar trying to crack a password that’s not “Everything Is Planned”; Tiger Shroff typing the password too slowly; ballistic missiles moving as if they’re waiting for the password to be typed. You know it’s going downhill when a ticker flashes “England win 2-1 on penalties” during a breaking-news broadcast of a tunnel-vault heist in Central London. 

The film could’ve been corny fun. But the globe-trotting is less exciting than a trip from Andheri to Bandra on dug-up roads. The commentary is half-hearted, despite the ready-made metaphor of brainwashed machines to explain religious extremism. Not one set piece is memorable; a shootout in a lab (with tubes of blue, red and green acid) is scored with the sort of Hinglish techno track usually associated with Sid Anand action sequences, but the slow-mo swag is nowhere near. The dialogue is particularly poor, leaning on gems like “UK ke Abdul Kalam,” “Terrorism mein bhi nepotism?,” another Atmanirbhar pun, and the cherry on this vegan cheesecake: “If we have to catch this psychopath, we need two bigger psychos.” 

At one point, Rocky and Freddy heroically sprint out of a lab before it blows up, but the film forgets that colleague Priya (Sonakshi Sinha) is in there with them. It also forgets that other colleague Misha is locked in an endless combat scene with a robot in a tower. 

Veterans like Ronit Roy and Manish Chaudhuri are reduced to playing two versions of the same army-boss character. The result is one of them going through the film saying “Let’s see” and fist-pumping to footage of good news on their computer screen. Tiger Shroff’s Rocky is supposed to have a silly sense of humour, but it’s an excuse for a screenplay that has no sense of humour or self-awareness. There aren’t enough of Akshay Kumar’s patented deadpan reactions (Example: When asked to put aside his ego and think rationally, he puts aside his beer and poses like Rodin’s ‘The Thinker’ sculpture) and one-liners in a film that makes it look like Freddy is just supremely bored. He expends the least possible energy in every scene: His face remains impressively still when he’s riding a horse, using a machine gun or leaping through fire. 

The idea is to depict Freddy as a cool, give-no-hoots daddy-era soldier, but there’s a thin line between indifference and inertia. Bade Miyan Chote Miyan lives and dies on one side of that line. If you can’t guess which side that is, Batman-Bane will have a not-so-quick word with you about world politics, global warming, India not being ruthless enough (in cricket), and Rocky and Freddy’s habit of running even after the film has ended.