Tashan: Or how I survived the movie and lived to tell the tale

The fact that I am writing this is testimony to the fact that movies can’t kill. But they can come very close to crushing your desire to live. Tashan did exactly that. The only reason I refrain from calling it the worst movie of our times is because I haven’t seen Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, which well-wishers assure me (with a haunted look), is in a class of its own.
I don’t have the courage to go through the storyline because none exists. What does exist is some convoluted reason for two guys to fight over some moolah and a starved bebo, sorry, babe. Add an excuse of a ‘Bhai’ who is behind all this, and you have it. And who do we get for this Bhaiya don? Our very own tapori Anil Kapoor who graduates to play a don who can’t speak English but speak in English he must. One: He is not Sanjay Dutt. Two: Only his dialogue writer could understand his dialogues. They should have given sub-titles for his dialogues or should have supplied babel fish with each ticket…nice mythical creatues, these fish… But then that would have meant giving a thought about the audience, which is, as the circumstantial evidence points out, unlikely!
Saif Ali Khan, after a string of successful movies, goes back to his pre-DCH days and plays the second fiddle to our cool-dude superstar Akshay. It’s a role worse than what he has already done in Tu Chor Main Sipahi movies. Akshay is the only saving grace. Aint he always :o). He comes in from UP, idolizing the BhaiyyaJi, plays the role of a recovery agent to recover the money from Bebo, only to discover his long lost lady love. Amidst all this, he also runs through millions of bullets unscathed, does spiderman-ish stunts and must have killed the villain by the time credits rolled. I wouldn’t know, for I must have fallen asleep.
There were times when I wondered why people populating the screen were doing what they were indeed doing. Truth be told, I also know that movie making is not always about logic. However, it is when your hands unconsciously grab your head, in a weak moment of exasperation; you know that you are onto something special. It happened with me twice in the movie.
To cut the non-existent story short: STAY AWAY for this Tashan. Instead try to decipher what your doctor wrote last time you visited her, read your company’s quality manuals or study the mutual fund offer document carefully. That’s far more fulfilling.