Baaghi is a slickly packaged empty vessel. The action choreography is striking, the locations are exquisite, the camerawork polished, the art design impressive, the cast well dressed. Scratch the attractive surface though, and you get a dated, cliched storyline that compartmentalises hero, heroine, villains and comedians in the way Hindi films of the 1970s and 1980s did. The story begins in the menacing Bangkok den of a rogue called Raghav Shetty, who is on the lookout for Sia Khurana. Cut to Hyderabad, where she is shooting for a film directed by her Daddy, when the numero uno baddie's goons abduct her.

It is rare opportunity that you get to say beauty and action in the same sentence in a Hindi film. 'Baaghi' and more importantly Tiger Shroff show us that there can be a tremendous amount of beauty and grace in the way one kicks and punches assorted goons. In a pleasantly surprising transformation from his awkward debut in 'Heropanti', Tiger's handwork in honing himself is more than evident in his second outing. It is a pure delight to watch this young actor move his hard earned body with such fluidity and ease.

It would've been more appropriate to let the film's tagline read - Rebels without a cause. "Baaghi bano par ek maqsad ke liye," says a Kalaripayattu guru to Tiger in the film. But the 'maqsad' doesn't make its way into the screenplay. The film is singularly dull and devoid of logic with nearly no spark between the leads. Shraddha and Tiger are earnest and director Sabbir Khan's efforts show, but the focus is not on making a good film. Just winsome action suffices for the makers.

You know how some video games play out an origins story before the player gets into a console-pounding, level-unlocking mode? Now imagine a movie, a foolish, exhausting one, if you will, that does the same but the action only lasts for about 20 minutes while the preceding two hours are taken up in what led to it. With its 1980s sensibilities -- back when malarkey passed off as masala, protagonists functioned without brains and too many pointless songs fought their way in -- Sabbir Khan's Baaghi: A Rebel For Love is as nonsensical as its title.

In his debut movie Heropanti, Tiger Shroff had wowed everyone with his martial art skills and with his second film Baaghi, the cub has roared impressively. However, the lack of a strong screenplay and the absence of crisp editing, makes Baaghi a tad disappointing watch.

Exactly in the year 1990, released a film titled BAAGHI: A REBEL FOR LOVE that starred Salman Khan and Naghma, which was Salman Khan's second big release. Exactly 26 years later, Bollywood today witnesses a film with the same title BAAGHI, starring Tiger Shroff and Shraddha Kapoor. This film, incidentally also happens to be Tiger Shroff's second film.

Take a dramatic Bollywood love story and crash land it into an adrenaline-pumping fight movie, and you have Baaghi. With soft emotions and hard knock outs interrupting each other, the Tiger Shroff-Shraddha Kapoor movie is jarring. There is a dying father and Bollywood's favourite plot point - a last wish: To see the 23-year-old wild-child tamed at a martial arts training camp in Kerala. Rony (Tiger) learns Kalaripayuttu, a South Indian combat technique, gets wilder and kills half of Thailand for jest. It doesn't help that his character draws inspiration from the Ramayana.

The makers of Baaghi - the writer and the director, two separate but obviously like-minded entities - seem to believe that it is perfectly all right to rebel against reason, logic and good sense. Without a credible screenplay to hold it together, this 140-minute action film can only heap endless misery on moviegoers who detest meaningless bone-crunching. Watching an irate but purposeless combatant single-handedly demolish all his adversaries from Kollam to Bangkok is excruciatingly monotonous.

When the trailer of Baaghi hit the web, what outshone all else in it was the kind of action Tiger Shroff and Shraddha Kapoor were seen gifting viewers with. Sabbir Khan's Baaghi, true to its trailer, is mostly about action than anything else. In fact, it is so much of action that after a point of time you lose track of the story altogether. If there is one, to begin with.

We are told Ronny (Tiger Shroff) is a rebel. Don't ask why! His father, in order to get him disciplined sends him off to Kerala at his friend's martial arts academy. Naturally, he is much of a rule-breaker there. On his journey to the academy, Ronny meets the over-chirpy, talking to the clouds kind of girl Sia (Shraddha Kapoor). She is an upcoming actress in her father's (Sunil Grover) film. Boy-meets-girl, exchange a few words and are in love!

When we come upon him first in his second film, 'Baaghi', we see Tiger Shroff upside down, balancing his full weight on a thumb and forefinger. It is an impressive sight, to see someone so fit, so agile, so much in command of his body. It is the money shot of the film. Whenever we see Tiger doing something that involves his hands, legs, torso, head, all moving in perfect sync, scything up, slashing down, revolving on the balls of his feet, we are watching: it is a pleasure to see this young actor move, no jerk, all flow. When he is in action, that is. When he is 'acting', he is still clearly a novice.