Tiger Shroff, the most agile superstar in B-Town, courtesy his enviable dance moves and gravity-defying-action, is at a bit of a disadvantage today.
This star son’s latest outing Student Of The Year 2 (SOTY2) will end up clocking average business. Or, at least, that is what the early collections indicate. The reason for this is the larger view that ‘the content is mediocre.’ Tiger’s screen presence did salvage this campus caper from becoming a total disaster. However, even he could only ‘kick’ it that far and no further.
The film has collected something to the tune of Rs 52 crore (approximately) until Wednesday. And, while this is not a bad total at all, it compares poorly to the collection of Tiger’s previous blockbuster, Baaghi 2 (2018), which went on to collect around Rs 161 crore in its lifetime in the domestic market.
Another reason why SOTY2 paled in comparison to Baaghi 2 is because the mass markets (Bihar, Odisha, Rajasthan and CP Berar) didn’t support the flighty, upmarket ridiculous content of the Punit Malhotra directorial.
A lot of people had found ample fault with the Ahmed Khan actioner, too. However, the aam aadmi patronised this rebel-with-cause story.
Trade guru Taran Adarsh tweeted, “Tiger Shroff versus Tiger Shroff...Top 3 opening weekend biz:
2016 Baaghi – Rs 38.58 cr
2018 Baaghi 2 – Rs 73.10 cr
2019 SOTY2 – Rs 38.83 cr”
In the days to come, Taran has been constantly writing about multiplexes supporting Tiger’s latest offering. However, he has been cautiously adding a disclaimer of sorts saying the film is still not faring the way a Tiger Shroff film is supposed to.
So coming to the question — how is a Tiger Shroff film ‘supposed’ to fare? Well, since his debut with Heropanti (2014), the action star has attained a cult status. Irrespective of story or anything substantial, he has managed to reach a certain target audience with just his moves and movements (with the exception of duds like Flying Jatt, 2016 and Munna Michael, 2017). Unfortunately, SOTY2 came stuck at the seams and was found wanting on many levels.
A word of caution here. The next guy presenting a film with India’s Jackie Chan-meets-Michael Jackson should remember to also give Tiger solid script support. Otherwise, as we said earlier, chances are he may not be able to ‘punch’ his way out of too many of these poorly-written films. Few actors can rise above the script.
(tweets @ Meena_Iyer)
