The hero, in a massive leap of faith, rises up in the air, flings his legs out, thumps his palm on top of villains’ bobbing heads. Victims fall flat to the
ground. They could be buried six feet under, with the same thudding sound. At one point, for lack of a better weapon, he yanks off a street lamppost, goes charging against a bunch of goons zipping off in their topless jeep. Which is unnecessary. His hands (“gaon-wallah haath”) alone could do the job. As they often do: dozens lick dust, in one fell swoop.

You see. He’s the “sher”: there’s fair debate over whether that word is Hindi for tiger, or lion. In this case, it certainly means the latter – a loud one roars from the screen when the hero swaggers in. The filmmakers are clearly proud of their stunt scenes first. Not only is there an action director credited, the filmmaker (Rohit Shetty) takes separate billing for “action designer” in the opening credits. Minor mentions of other influences, say, the Bruce Willis starrer Red (for the swirling cop-car sequence) could’ve been grand gesture as well.

The super-hero is called Singham. What kinda family name’s that? Well, it means the lion in Sanskrit, more importantly, is the title of a Tamil blockbuster this flick’s based on. Which is the way the cookie crumbles.