Tashan (2008) film posters :
Tashan (2008) Movie Rating and Review :
Rating :
Acting – 5/10
Direction – 2/10
Screenplay – 2/10
Music – 6/10
Technique – 5/10
Review :
Eeeesh! What kitsch!
Forget revenue percentages and distributor shares and all financial mumbo jumbo, Tashan is not playing at a multiplex near you because it doesn’t deserve to. The only style it has is packed into the title of the film. The rest of it can best be described as crass, suburban jatra or perhaps nautch-girl nautanki.
Tashan tries to be a Dhoom: 2-meets-Bunty Aur Babli designer product, but is not a patch on either of the two earlier Yash Raj films. It doesn’t have the cool of D: 2 or the earthiness of B&B. In fact, rather than waste time haggling with the metro plexes, Tashan’s distributors’ shoule look towards the Bhojpuri belt. That’s where its hopes lie.
We can’t tell you the story. Not because we don’t want to spill the beans but because there isn’t one. It wants to be a roller-coaster, comic-book, on-the-road movie with three main players – Pooja (Kareena), Bachchan Pande (Akshay) and Jimmy (Saif) – playing a game of one-upmanship under the shadow of Bhaiyyaji (Anil Kapoor).
The lame premise goes something like this… Pooja steals a lot of money from Bhaiyyaji by faking a love story with Jimmy. Then Bhaiyyaji assigns Bachchan Pande to track down Pooja. Jimmy is taken along as a sidekick because the triangle is incomplete without him. Then comes even more lame back stories and mindless mayhem leading up to the big action finale.
The problem starts with Anil Kapoor. As the small-time UP bhaiyya who strikes gold and becomes an international crook desperate to learn English, the actor is meant to do a louder version of Jaaved Jaaferi’s “Crocodile Dundee” in Salaam Namaste. But he never gets it right, chewing up the phunny dialogues with his gutkha, sometimes making it barely audible. It’s a Gabbar gone wrong, a very un-khush Mogambo.
Then there’s the much-hyped chemistry, physics and all those paanchvi pass-subjects between Saif and Kareena. And even a fifth grader will tell you it’s not smart enough. Saif falters big time as the Sean Penn of U-Turn – a good guy in a bad world – and looks way too old for Kareena.
Kareena, well, that’s a different story. She looks stunning with a capital S! Call it size zero, blame it on hot yoga sessions or a lettuce diet, Bebo looks beautiful. Hot? We aren’t quite sure. But she does appear in a bikini and there are about 19 shots of her in that tiny green two-piece.
Besides that, the only reason to book yourself a Tashan ticket is Akshay. He is, yet again, the best thing about a bad movie. As the Gangakinarewaala “gawar gorilla”, he is the only guy with real style, adding attitude to the asthmatic atmosphere. No wonder it is he who gets to brush, if not lock, lips with Kareena.
Aki Narula has a lot to do with the technicolour tamasha of two-and-a-half hour film. He is still in Jhoom Barabar Jhoom mode. Cinematographer Ayananka Bose thankfully is better. The dream destinations – from Greece to Ladakh, Rajasthan to Kerala – look gorgeous.
In fact, it’s the songs which are the crests of this trough-trapped tranquillizer of a movie. Vishal-Shekhar’s songs, especially Dil haara re and Dil dance maare, bring about some much needed energy to the screen but they are but brief interludes to the agony.
Acting – 5/10
Direction – 2/10
Screenplay – 2/10
Music – 6/10
Technique – 5/10
Review :
Eeeesh! What kitsch!
Forget revenue percentages and distributor shares and all financial mumbo jumbo, Tashan is not playing at a multiplex near you because it doesn’t deserve to. The only style it has is packed into the title of the film. The rest of it can best be described as crass, suburban jatra or perhaps nautch-girl nautanki.
Tashan tries to be a Dhoom: 2-meets-Bunty Aur Babli designer product, but is not a patch on either of the two earlier Yash Raj films. It doesn’t have the cool of D: 2 or the earthiness of B&B. In fact, rather than waste time haggling with the metro plexes, Tashan’s distributors’ shoule look towards the Bhojpuri belt. That’s where its hopes lie.
We can’t tell you the story. Not because we don’t want to spill the beans but because there isn’t one. It wants to be a roller-coaster, comic-book, on-the-road movie with three main players – Pooja (Kareena), Bachchan Pande (Akshay) and Jimmy (Saif) – playing a game of one-upmanship under the shadow of Bhaiyyaji (Anil Kapoor).
The lame premise goes something like this… Pooja steals a lot of money from Bhaiyyaji by faking a love story with Jimmy. Then Bhaiyyaji assigns Bachchan Pande to track down Pooja. Jimmy is taken along as a sidekick because the triangle is incomplete without him. Then comes even more lame back stories and mindless mayhem leading up to the big action finale.
The problem starts with Anil Kapoor. As the small-time UP bhaiyya who strikes gold and becomes an international crook desperate to learn English, the actor is meant to do a louder version of Jaaved Jaaferi’s “Crocodile Dundee” in Salaam Namaste. But he never gets it right, chewing up the phunny dialogues with his gutkha, sometimes making it barely audible. It’s a Gabbar gone wrong, a very un-khush Mogambo.
Then there’s the much-hyped chemistry, physics and all those paanchvi pass-subjects between Saif and Kareena. And even a fifth grader will tell you it’s not smart enough. Saif falters big time as the Sean Penn of U-Turn – a good guy in a bad world – and looks way too old for Kareena.
Kareena, well, that’s a different story. She looks stunning with a capital S! Call it size zero, blame it on hot yoga sessions or a lettuce diet, Bebo looks beautiful. Hot? We aren’t quite sure. But she does appear in a bikini and there are about 19 shots of her in that tiny green two-piece.
Besides that, the only reason to book yourself a Tashan ticket is Akshay. He is, yet again, the best thing about a bad movie. As the Gangakinarewaala “gawar gorilla”, he is the only guy with real style, adding attitude to the asthmatic atmosphere. No wonder it is he who gets to brush, if not lock, lips with Kareena.
Aki Narula has a lot to do with the technicolour tamasha of two-and-a-half hour film. He is still in Jhoom Barabar Jhoom mode. Cinematographer Ayananka Bose thankfully is better. The dream destinations – from Greece to Ladakh, Rajasthan to Kerala – look gorgeous.
In fact, it’s the songs which are the crests of this trough-trapped tranquillizer of a movie. Vishal-Shekhar’s songs, especially Dil haara re and Dil dance maare, bring about some much needed energy to the screen but they are but brief interludes to the agony.
If Yash Raj Films, the harbingers of celluloid tashan for the past four decades, is claiming that Tashan is the new style bench-mark of 2008, it’s bad news Bollywood could do without.
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