Not a roar, just a whimper

Ek tha tiger
Hindi (U/A)
Cast: Salman Khan,
Katrina Kaif
Director: Kabir Khan

Tiger breaks a thousand bones across Iraq, Ireland, Turkey and Cuba.

When the crunch-crunch turns so routine, Salman Khan looks up at the night sky to talk to Katrina’s dead father among the stars.

Some more action. This time, he stops a tram on its tracks.

Back to dull life... When there is nothing to roar about his RAW career, our agent whimpers that Tiger is a dog’s name.

It’s a few gems (make it very few) like this which stand the movie in average stead. Else, Ek Tha Tiger is a silly spy story where Salman — on a missile mission where he has to outwit ISI rivals — falls for a beauty from across the border (Katrina Kaif, looking just that).

His boss Girish Karnad (glad he is back) is upset that Tiger wandered out of the territory to serenade a Pakistani, “of all the nations!” Karnad is in no mood to forgive the geographical lapse of judgment.

But then, the hero here is Salman Superman Khan. He can fly up buildings and leap off them at will.

He can make a sandwich of all who throw a spanner in his romantic works.

Kaif is no waif either. She does some high-voltage stunts on rooftops with the same ease as she sings and dances around her spy-mate.

The locations are exotic and the action, fantastic. Only that our Tiger got so tame a tale that he barely leaves a paw print.