I like Neeraj Pandey's stories. His A Wednesday! (2009) is a masterpiece and Special 26 (2013) a good satire. Baby is good, but not great. But consider it as 2015's first watchable film.

The opening credits serve as a prologue which tells us that an Indian elite squad (codenamed BABY because of their martial infancy) is sent out to infiltrate huts of terrorism around the world so as to prevent any act of terrorism in India (and/or elsewhere, but let us focus on the exclusive Indian patriotism here). Ajay (Akshay Kumar), a father of two, is the skipper of this squad and mostly acts as a one-man army. Basically, this squad carries out unofficial surgical operations outside India. The story starts to make sense only after you are successfully pulled inside the plot which maneuvers between places around India and the world.

A brawny first half will make you uncomfortable with some boring sequences that will surely raise few questions on the editor. The humor is destructive rather than constructive as the audience awaits a dose of real thrills. There are one or two scenes that MAY make you feel good from a spectator's perspective, but trust me it looks cooked. Enter second half and greet Anupam Kher in his appreciable performance as a quirky strategist. The pace catches up in the last forty minutes and if it were not for these crucial minutes, I am positive the film may have never come out its self-inflicted sabotage.

The plot is ambitious and no wonder Pandey has sampled some real life events into his story. They work and as far as an unsuspecting viewer is concerned, it all goes well. If you dig deeper, the narrative has nothing substantial to deliver. Yes we talk about killing these mercenaries before they plan another attack. But when every other bad guy dies prematurely, the fun quotient drains. And that is what happens in Baby. It is all so simple yet so difficult.

Denzongpa and Kumar are good, not great. I somehow missed Daggubati; Kumar's actress (from that seemingly sexist Airtel ad) had more screen-space than him. The dialogs are funny and the one thing that really works for the film is the combination of drama and humor that goes hand-in-hand with all those weighty happenings. Even if you start to wonder where the thrills are, the witty dialogs will take care of you. The raw sequences of interrogation and infiltration dictates your attention.

While the photography is good, the cinematography is below average. Direction is the usual Pandey, nothing to talk about. There is some good writing in here (a la A Wednesday!) but otherwise Baby is a slightly exaggerated drama. The namesake stunts are punchy and as the story turns to the climax, you will surely feel a satisfaction that if not in reality, a fictional India is doing something bold and not busy promoting superficial campaigns like Swachch Bharat & Make In India.

BOTTOM LINE: Baby is a tasty dish for our palates, but it ends up being more of a meaty affair than an intellectual thril