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Liger is the much-hyped Bollywood debut of Telugu star Vijay Deverakonda, although the movie is also simultaneously made in Telugu. Co-starring Ananya Panday and former boxing champion Mike Tyson, Liger is written, directed and produced by iSmart Shankar fame Puri Jagannadh and is co-produced by Charmme Kaur and Karan Johar (who seriously needs to look at how his team is selecting scripts). Liger also stars Ramya Krishnan, Ronit Roy, Makrand Deshpande and Chunky Panday. Liger Movie Review: Vijay Deverakonda and Ananya Panday's Film is Aafat Max Pro! (LatestLY Exclusive).
Releasing on August 24 (Telugu version) and 25 (Hindi version), Liger, that revolves around the sport of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), has Deverakonda playing Liger, a poor chaiwala and a Jeet Kune Do-trained fighter who aims to be an international MMA champion. However, his dreams are threatened when he falls for a rich, spoilt influencer played by Ananya Panday.
The movie, however, has opened to poor to average reviews from the critics, and we can't really blame them for dissing the movie. Liger is a silly entertainer that reeks of misogynistic, juvenile direction, hammy performances and weak writing. While Deverakonda tries hard to make the proceedings interesting with his confident body language and star charishma, the rest of the film crumbles around him like a badly-made, under-watered mud castle.
There are some ridiculous sequences, inane character quirks and dumb plot developments, though in this list, we choose 13 of our favourite WTF moments from Liger. Of course, needless to say, MAJOR SPOILERS ahead, so tread carefully.
That Name!
If you thought 'Liger' was supposed to be VK's character's sports name or something, you are wrong there! That's his actual name as his mother thought herself as a tigress and her dead husband as a Lion, and therefore she named her son 'Liger'. Ignoring this cross-species (dear makers, cross breed is a totally wrong term) romantic notion, if only she had googled more about Ligers, she would have realised that despite their huge sizes, ligers have more health complications and are generally sterile! Liger: Vijay Deverakonda and Ananya Panday’s Film Gets a Title!
St... St... Stutter!
Liger's stutter is established right after his first fight scene where he saves a character from being beaten up by goons. However, once the stutter comes out, the movie finds enough ways for the characters to seek ridiculing and insulting his speech defect, including that very character whose skin he just saved! In fact, this 'stutter' also becomes the reason for a major mid-film plot twist that is stupid as it goes.
Tanya's First Meet With Liger
Tanya's first meeting with Liger is just outright bizarre. She chances upon him at a coffee shop and straightaway accuses him of someone who keeps bodyshaming her in the comments section of her posts. Why, we have no clue! Even more troubling is his reaction when he finds out she is the sister of his rival and that allows him to manhandle her in public view!
Sanju!
Vishnu Reddy plays Sanju, the aforementioned elder brother of Tanya, who is arrogant and brash, and just assumes that the entire world knows his name. If Delhi ke munde asks 'jaanta hai mera baap kaun hai?, this dude asks 'jaanta hai mera naam kya hai?'. Does he think the name 'Sanju' strikes the same kind of terror as, say a Gabbar Singh?
Mother's Rant Against All Women
Heard of the saying, 'behind every successful man is the hand of a woman'? Well, Puri Jagannadh thinks otherwise, as he keeps making Liger's coach and the mother say things like women are distractions when it comes to the path of success for a man. In fact, his mother keeps calling them 'devils', shames them for their dressing sense and often refers to them as seductresses in underskirts. Luckily for her, even the movie thinks likewise and end up making Tanya just like that!
Miming Castration
The scene I genuinely laughed with the film is when Liger takes on his academy bullies and threatens them with enactment of what he is going to do with them if he had his way! The said enactment involved castration and then him playing marbles with their balls! Ouch! Liger Box Office Collection Day 1: Vijay Deverakonda, Ananya Panday’s Sports Drama Grosses Rs 33.12 Crore Worldwide.
That Interval Block Scene
The pre-interval scene is quite a hilarious conflict creation sequence, when Tanya takes Liger for a late night ride, and her brother and his gang chase them up, and makes her 'realise' he has a stutter. She then ditches him for this crude reason, however, even cruder is the whole treatment given to the scene and the performances of the actors. Of course, it is later revealed that Tanya deliberately broke up with him so that he can concentrate on his MMA, which was silly, since he was already beating up people black and blue without any troubles.
Chasing Tanya
Post the previous scene, Liger decides to confront Tanya while she was driving with her brother, and then ends up chasing her with a baseball bat! Yup, you read that right! Just Puri things, I guess... Puri Jagannadh Called Out for iSmart Shankar's ‘Sexual Harassment’ Scene Featuring Ram Pothineni and Nabha Natesh Ahead of Liger Release.
Chunky Panday's Dubbing
Remember that round table interview where Ananya infamously lamented Chunky Panday had never acted in a Dharma movie? Well, at least that woe of hers did get resolved here, as Chunky finally is part of a Dharma movie and plays a rich US-settled businessman who sponsors Liger for his international MMA tournament and brings him to Las Vegas. The funny part is his dubbing in the Telugu version. There are some parts where we realise that it is Chunky who did the dubbing, but when the character gets serious - after his daughter is kidnapped - the voice changes and it become quite deeper and it definitely didn't belong to the actor.
The Big Twist!
There are two 'major' twists in the second half of the film. One is that Chunky Panday plays Ananya Panday's father in the movie! If your jaw hasn't dropped with that revelation, it is also told that Tanya deliberately broke up with Liger so that he can concentrate on being a champion, and it was in fact she who pushed her father to sponsor him. If you hadn't guessed that twist hours before, or at least didn't gauge that from her body language once the father revelation is discovered, then you clearly aren't seeing much movies.
Liger Gets Beaten By Krav Maga Girls
No, don't get me wrong. I don't mind Liger getting beaten by a gang of girls, after managing to hold himself up against any number of men earlier in the movie (though he did get easily overpowered by Tanya's kidnappers). It is his reactions to getting beaten up that makes the scene to the list, where he keeps telling the women to stop all this shite otherwise no one would marry them, and whether he had made them pregnant and abandoned them that they are beating him with so much viciousness. Dude, you thoroughly deserve each and every blow and kick in the nuts!
Mike Tyson!
Mike Tyson's appearance in the film is hardly a surprise, considering the makers were raising quite the hoopla that he agreed to be part of the movie. In fact, despite his 10-minute cameo, Tyson gets the second billing when the cast names are revealed in the opening titles, even before Ananya's. Tyson plays Mark Anderson, a former MMA legend who Liger idolises and who, for some reason, is now a vasooli agent in USA. Tough times after retirement, I guess. Anyway, Tyson's cameo easily rivals Sylvester Stallone ridiculous guest appearance in Kambakkht Ishq, as he ends up being another man rival that Liger could easily defeat. Even more bizarre was how the movie recalled the infamous time when Tyson bit off Evan Holyfield's ear in the boxing ring many years. I really hope that Tyson was paid buttloads of money to agree and make a mockery of himself here. Mike Tyson in Liger: Did You Know the Boxing Legend Had Already Made His Bollywood ‘Debut’ in a Sunny Deol and Shahid Kapoor-Starrer? (Watch Video).
No Proper Climax
Liger is supposed to be about the hero's rise to be an MMA champion, and yet the film's treatment of that journey is quite unbelievable. Most of the matches are shown through montages, and the supposed finale of the international championship is unconventionally ignored as everyone gets interested in the live-streaming of Liger trying to take down a retired, aging champion who lacked any sort of flexibility and now owns a beer paunch. It's like Indian cricket team forsaking the World Cup finale just because Virat Kohli hit three sixes off Malcolm Marshall's bowling.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 26, 2022 04:48 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
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