It's fascinating to see the various wildlife shows exhibited on the edutainment channels like National Geographic, Discovery, Animal Planet etc. Now imagine a movie in such a setup and that too in Bollywood, that has hardly made films on wildlife. Hence, Roar - Tigers Of The Sunderbans definitely had an advantage in this context, despite lack of buzz. Also, the promos indicated that a lot of hard work has gone into making the film in one of the most difficult terrains of Asia - The Sunderbans. Also, the VFX is stunning and at par with global standards. Sadly, the story is laughable and direction is shaky. Roar - Tigers Of The Sunderbans is hence a disappointment!

The story of the movie: Pundit (Abhinav Shukla) is a captain of an elite commando team who comes to the Sunderbans to kill a white tiger and avenge the death of his brother Uday (Pulkit Jawahar). He is joined with his elite team - Cheena (Virendra Singh Ghuman), CJ (Nora Fatehi), Kashmiri (Aadil Chahal), Sufi (Aaran Chaudhary) and Hero (Ali Quli). Local guide Madhu (Pranay Dixit) and expert tracker Jhumpa (Himarsha V) too join Pundit in his endaevour. However, despite having a proper plan in place, the best of arms and a general knowledge of the jungle, Team Pundit fail to succeed in their mission. On top of it, the menacing poacher Bheera (Subrat Dutta) and a no-nonsense forest officer (Achint Kaur) are ready to go to any length to stop them from succeeding.

The biggest problem with Roar - Tigers Of The Sunderbans is the silly plotline. Uday rescues a white tiger cub and instead of releasing it in the forest or informing the forest officials, he gets the cub in his guest house! When the forest officials come to take away the cub, he shouts at them and tries to prove they are wrong and he is justified! The mother tiger meanwhile picks up the scent of her child and reaches Uday's room and kills him. Hence, Pundit decides to 'take revenge' and kill the tiger! So as one can see, one doesn't empathize with Uday's foolhardy decision of 'kidnapping' the cub or with Pundit's mission. Secondly, several questions are left unanswered. Jhumpa joins the team, thinking they are here to shoot a documentary. When she realizes their true intentions, she doesn't ditch them or call the forest officials. She instead sticks with the group and helps them! The interval point is equally bewildering. Despite their 'enemy' in front of them and despite being equipped with arms, the team members don't shoot the animal and just look on. Maybe they froze but it didn't seem so from their expressions. The heroines are scantily dressed which doesn't quite look convincing. But then, they are super hot and hence no complaints in that regard!





Thankfully, things get a bit more sensible in the second half, although the team members keep behaving mysteriously here and there (Bheera messes up with the fuel tank of the boat and team members don't even try to investigate what went wrong). The snake sequence is mind-boggling. The climax gets spoilt a bit because of too much flashback but nevertheless, makes for a nice watch. The VFX is simply outstanding and it was a treat to see the 'before-and-after' shots of the film in the end credits. The yellow tiger was flawlessly made into white and the jungle scenes were shot in a controlled environment in a studio but not once do you get the hint. Kudos! Another plus point of the film is there are no songs at all and no boring moments. The 123-minute-long film moves at a quick pace. Also, there's no unwanted romantic track either. But again, in the end the hero and the heroine all of a sudden kiss in a 'we-are-both-of-opposite-sex-and-alive-and-it's-a-Hindi-film-and-its-about-to-end-so-let's-fall-in-love-even-though-we-didn't-quite-felt-attracted-to-each-other-before' moment!

Abhinav Shukla disappoints initially with his loud performance and overacting. But later on, he gets controlled and does a fine job. Himarsha V is smoking hot and makes the film bearable to a great extent. Nora Fatehi is sizzling as well but doesn't get much scope. Pranay Dixit gives a very sincere performance. Virendra Singh Ghuman impresses with his Bheema-type appearance and is alright when it comes to acting. Aaran Chaudhary, who was once in the defence forces, has a good screen presence. Aadil Chahal and Ali Quli play their supporting parts well. Subrat Dutta is fine as the villain. Achint Kaur (forest officer) is strictly okay and her preachy Save The Tiger dialogue seems quite filmy.

John Stewart Eduri's background score is bit loud but makes an impact. Michael Watson's cinematography is stunning and captures the Sunderbans beautifully. In fact, the aerial shots are too many in the film but one won't mind as it's fascinating and also it takes the attention away from the silly story for some time! Resul Pookutty's sound design is life-like. Allan Amin's action is as always appealing. Story (Kamal Sadanah, Abis Rizvi) as mentioned above is silly and one of the big reasons why the film disappoints. Screenplay (Kamal Sadanah, Swati Goradia, Aanand Goradia) doesn't quite improve things as well and same goes for Kamal Sadanah's direction. Few scenes are exceptionally shot though.

On the whole, Roar - Tigers Of The Sunderbans boasts of great work by the technical team and fairly decent performances by the actors. But the story fails to make sense and evoke empathy and then there are lots of questions unanswered and both these reasons make the film a laughable fare, particularly the first half. The crew must have had a tough time shooting in the Sunderbans but sadly, all their hard work won't bear fruit.

My rating - ** out of 5!