All fizz, no substance Starring: Vijay Deverakonda, Ramya Krishnan, Ananya Pandey, Ronit Roy, Mike Tyson (cameo) and Chunky Pandey Ratin...
All fizz, no substance
Starring: Vijay Deverakonda, Ramya Krishnan,
Ananya Pandey, Ronit Roy, Mike Tyson (cameo) and Chunky Pandey
Rating: 2* (the additional half* is for The Vijay Deverakonda)
The audience had high expectations from this Puri Jagannadh film, but despite having some lovely fight sequences Liger falls flat on its face thanks to the mindless writing, especially in the second half. The climax is an unmitigated disaster with the much-hyped Mike Tyson cameo as the final nail in the coffin. What were the director and the writers thinking while by orchestrating such an outrageous climax! Only the dashing Vijay Deverakonda tries hard to salvage this lost cause by putting in a lot of hard work which shows, but to no avail.
Liger and his mother Balamani (a screaming and over-the-top Ramya Krishnan) shift base from Varanasi to Mumbai where they run a tea stall. However, the real intention behind the shift is to meet Christopher (a restrained Ronit Roy) who runs an MMA training centre. Christopher rejects Balamani’s request to train her son, but when she reminds Christopher that Liger is the son of Lion Balram, the famous fighter who defeated Christopher in 2004, the latter hires Liger as his servant as the mother-son duo doesn’t have money to pay for the training. Christopher lays down two conditions for Liger - only focus and no running after girls. During the course, Christopher soon realizes that Liger is an expert fighter who can fulfil his dead father’s wish to become a national champion. Liger bumps into Taniya (Ananya Pandey) and their love blossoms. But when Taniya finds out that Liger is a born stammerer she dumps him.
Ananya Pandey’s character is very childlike
but she manages somehow to pull through. Chunky Pandey as Ananya’s father is
quite decent but he hardly has any screen time, appearing only towards the middle of the
second half.
It will be an uphill task for this film to
pull through in the Hindi belt. This reviewer again saw another big release, first
day first show, in a near empty theatre.
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