Bade Miyan Chote Miyan: Akshay-Tiger film is a dull case of Bollywood imitating itself

Right before embarking on a tense hostage rescue mission in Afghanistan, Firoz/Freddy (Akshay Kumar) and Rakesh/Rocky (Tiger Shroff) decide to name themselves Bade Miyan and Chote Miyan after the two thieves from David Dhawan’s 1998 blockbuster comedy.  En route, they make small talk such as – “Who is powerful and perfectionist?” “Who is fast and furious?”. After this scintillating conversation enhanced by poor CGI, they reach their destination and discover that the terrorists are also watching Bade Miyan Chote Miyan and enjoying the antics of Amitabh Bachchan and Govinda. Nothing unites humanity like Bollywood, clearly. 

Ali Abbas Zafar’s Bade Miyan Chote Miyan is about two elite soldiers ready to do anything for their country but have trouble listening to orders. They plod through a familiar trajectory for such characters on screen. They do something brave but instead of being rewarded, they are punished. They are then brought back for a mission that only they can fulfil…because well, they are ready to do anything for their country and have trouble listening to orders. Who is the enemy? We know the answer to that too. Someone from their side, gone rogue. They say art imitates life but increasingly, Bollywood only seems to imitate Bollywood. 

Mr Wong, representing China, and Mr Naved, representing Pakistan, are supposed to be the chief villains, but Bade Miyan isn’t the kind of film to delve deep into geopolitics. Instead, it borrows the look-alikes' conceit from the 1998 comedy and turns it into a large-scale action flick. So, Mr Wong and Mr Naved have little to do other than look gleeful and disappointed in turn. It falls upon Prithviraj to do the honours as Kabir, the antagonist. 

Kabir wears a full mask for half the film and half a mask for the rest of it. He also has a reptilian suit that he never sends to the laundry. He speaks in a gruff voice and has shamelessly plagiarised Dr Vaseegaran’s (much simpler) idea for creating immortal soldiers from Enthiran (2010). But nobody in this film has watched Enthiran, so Kabir is lauded as a genius. Prithviraj tries to make Kabir menacing through his physique and voice modulation, but the writing is so weak that the Joker act simply doesn’t work. 

The dialogues constantly undermine the seriousness of the situation. Sample this – when a zombie-like creature returns from death each time to kill them, Chote quips to Bade, “Ye aadmi hai ya dandruff?” 

There is zero tension built into the screenplay, and we watch the proceedings passively as if it’s an extra-long video game that we’ve played many times. The film jumps from one location to another before we can get any sense of the place. Akshay and Tiger share decent chemistry though the “patriotic” scenes are staged and executed exactly like patriotic scenes from a million other Hindi films. Chin up, eyes blazing, inspirational dialogue. 

Since the film doesn’t make any attempt to resemble reality, the emotion zooms right above our heads like one of the many CGI missiles we have to endure. BOOM. Is it a bird, or is it a plane? Do we even care? The action set pieces – and there are many – are repetitive and ineffective. Everything explodes in the end and our heroes walk away, unhurt. 

The women characters – Manushi Chillar’s Captain Misha and Alafya’s Parminder – get some of the action, too, but are largely there to admire Rocky’s abs and Freddy’s attitude. The sexual tension could have been interesting, but remember, this is a film with zero tension of any sort. Sonakshi Sinha in a cameo is passed out for most of the film, and she probably got the best deal of the cast. 

Even the final sequence with the mandatory countdown does zilch to set our pulse racing. As a female voice intones the countdown like a railway station announcement, you find yourself wishing you were Sonakshi Sinha. Also, we’re living in a universe where even bank passwords have to be alphanumeric and include special characters. But in Bollywood movies, world-destroying secrets are protected by passwords that anyone can guess. Bollywood villains are nice like that. 

Bade Miyan Chote Miyan ends on a note that suggests a franchise. Who is powerful and perfectionist? Bade. Who is fast and furious? Chote. Who is waiting and watching? Not me. 

Disclaimer: This review was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the film. Neither TNM nor any of its reviewers have any sort of business relationship with the film’s producers or any other members of its cast and crew.

Sowmya Rajendran writes on gender, culture, and cinema. She has written over 25 books, including a nonfiction book on gender for adolescents. She was awarded the Sahitya Akademi’s Bal Sahitya Puraskar for her novel Mayil Will Not Be Quiet in 2015.