Liger Review

Liger is a dead duck from the word go, declares Sukanya Verma.

Bushy-haired, bearded caveman of contemporary era leaping in air to the sound of deafening drums and pummelling half a dozen ruffians while the birdbrained heroine claps her hands in glee, Liger and its moth-eaten ways show little regard for its craft, cast or the cringing-by-the-second audience.

As if a corny, clueless plot of this simultaneously shot Telugu/Hindi bilingual isn't embarrassing already, Director Puri Jagannadh's off-putting humour and ridiculous ambitions ensure Liger is a dead duck from the word go.

A quarrelsome tea-seller (Ramya Krishnan) and her stammering son Liger (Vijay Devarakonda called so because Lion+Tiger+Brangelina logic) move from Benares to Mumbai in hope of turning the Mumma's boy into a Mixed Martial Arts fighter like his father by requesting the sport's veteran (Ronit Roy) to train him for free.

It's hard enough to focus on whatever random scenario Liger throws our way without having to suffer the hero's mother screaming her lungs out in every single scene.

Agreed, Ramya is the Queen of Glowering and can explode in endless rage at the first chance. But between her extreme outbursts and Vijay Devarakonda's struggle to finish a word, the movie sucks dry our patience faster than its sinewy star completes his cursory MMA training.

Devarakonda's unruly masculinity in Arjun Reddy continues to influence his Bollywood debut.

All his incredible charisma and intensity is reduced to a show monkey in spandex trunks.

More than the contact sport actually, Liger is interested in showing Ananya Panday in an imbecilic light.

Whatever good she accomplished in Gehraiyaan is undone as Tania, a social media-obsessed airhead, luring the hero by flaunting her figure and fluttering her eyelashes.

'I am going to Hollywood to pursue a career in acting,' she tells Liger, straight face and all. (This is not even remotely farfetched in a movie where US visas arrive faster than passport photos and the hero and his lackeys are instantly flown to Vegas in private jets of obliging NRI billionaires.)

Jagannadh's world view on women is alarmingly narrow.

There's a chest-thumping mother whose 'Uth Saale' cries to her son transcend the television screen.

There's an entitled brat who solely exists to throw herself at the hero, shake a leg in itsy-bitsy outfits, go hostile for no rhyme or reason only to be demeaned and demonised.

'Where is my vodka?' Ananya demands in a moment of exasperation. You will too.

Somewhere between Ma and misogyny, a dozen She-Hulks pop up from nowhere and rouse Liger's not-so-dormant Arjun Reddy.

By the time, his idol Mike Tyson delivers his star attraction, Liger is long past redemption.

One can only hope the legendary boxer made a killing for an awkward appearance that somehow ends with him on a Nevada ranch flanked by cowboys and fanboys. (It's a long story.)

What next? A sequel called Wimp? Worm and Chimp crossbreed, anyone?