Bade Miyan Chote Miyan

Bade Miyan Chote Miyan Movie Review Rating:

Star Cast: Akshay Kumar, Tiger Shroff, Sonakshi Sinha, Prithviraj Sukumaran, Manushi Chhillar, Alaya F

Director: Ali Abbas Zafar

What’s Good: You have a choice of another film to skip this one if you really want to go to the cinemas

What’s Bad: So many things

Loo Break: Take as many as you want for a more interesting view

Watch or Not?: Only if you’re okay with losing your brain cells

Language: Hindi

Available On: Theatrical release

Runtime: 164 Minutes

User Rating:

Two soldiers, Firoz, aka Freddy (Akshay Kumar) and Rakesh, aka Rocky (Tiger Shroff), are assigned a mission to stop a mad scientist villain named Kabir (Prithviraj Sukumaran). Kabir steals a “weapon” from the Indian soldiers that could ultimately destroy India. What exactly is the weapon? Why is Kabir doing all this? Do Freddy and Rocky succeed in stopping Kabir?

Bade Miyan Chote Miyan Movie Review: Script Analysis

Bade Miyan Chote Miyan is a 30-minute short story stretched over 164 minutes! Director-writer Ali Abbas Zafar and co-writer Aditya Basu present us with a fancy-wrapped gift box that’s empty inside. It’s an empty vessel that makes too much noise, it’s the most expensive firecracker you buy, but there’s hardly any spark. It’s shallow, hollow and devoid of any logic. The jokes are outdated, and the dialogues will make you believe Hussain Dalal’s lines in Brahmastra are of Shakespearean level!

Kabir, a masked scientist, wants to destroy India and steals a secret and important package from the Indian soldiers. This package could cost India everything. Colonel Adil Shekhar Azad (Ronit Roy) calls his best (and court-martial) soldiers, Freddy and Rocky, to stop him. Initially, they have no idea who the villain is. Honestly, it seems like they don’t care amidst the excessive slow-motion shots, unfunny dialogues, and a bade-chote camaraderie that is completely lacklustre.

Movie Poster

The first hour is spent doing nothing as the soldiers fight an unknown threat. The makers have focused little on the story and delivered too many action scenes. If you take a shot every time there’s a slow-motion scene of Akshay and Tiger walking in front of a blast, you’d get drunk by the interval. To be honest, that’s a more suitable state to watch the second half, which only worsens.

I thought, the villain’s backstory might bring some meaning to the story. But all I could think was, why would Prithviraj Sukumaran agree to do this? The movie as a whole lacks depth, and meaning and leaves you completely demotivated to do anything; such severe are the after-effects. Not a single character appeals to you, and no action scene makes you say “wow”. The Akshay Kumar and Tiger Shroff starrer reminds you of many movies: Christopher Nolan’s Batman, every superhero movie, and especially Pathaan.

Bade Miyan Chote Miyan Movie Review: Star Performance

It’s sad to see Akshay Kumar struggling to engross you in his performance. Even if you ignore the fake moustache, you can’t brush aside the lack of effort from his side to give a good performance. There’s hardly any expression and just one moment where he shines. The scene where he shines references Phir Hera Pheri, so even that doesn’t belong to this action thriller. Tiger Shroff is shown as a cool and young millennial, but instead of being one, he acts like one and not in a good way. One of the movie’s key elements should be Akshay and Tiger’s bonding as Bade and Chote. But that’s completely missing throughout. It’s an utter mismatch.

Prithviraj Sukumaran, as Kabir, the villain, does a good voice modulation. In a movie that struggles to impress you even a bit, watching him remove the mask was only the respite. But that’s not enough. You wonder why an actor who did a movie like Aadujeevitham – The Goat Life would agree to this clownery. All Manushi Chhillar does is fight and drive around, but she’s not even appreciated for it by anyone in the movie. At one point, I waited for the makers to reveal that she’s not a human, but a robot because the actress has zero expression and zero emotion.