Now I am no anarchist. I have always been quick to condemn random acts of violence, irrespective of who it has been directed at or what purpose it set out to achieve. Yet yesterday when I learnt that a group of irate film-goers in a Mumbai cinema hall tore apart seats and vandalised the place, I actually felt mighty pleased.
Apparently a group of people who had gone to watch Tashan, this year's most awaited Bollywood release, got so upset by the fare that was dished that they vandalised the cinema hall.
If you are not familiar with the word Tashan, it means in coloquial Hindi, lot of style combined with lot of attitude. Don't blame me then when I went inside the cinema hall, after procuring tickets at a premium price, I was expecting great things from the film. After all, it was tomtomed as the year's biggest movie by the redoubtable Yash Raj productions. What I ended up watching was a terrible, terrible film.
For a while now, the fizz has been missing from the Yash Chopra stable of movies. Last year could have been disastrous, had Chak De not saved their blushes. Jhoom Barabar Jhoom was an astonishingly bad film and to no one's surprise bombed spectacularly, Tara Rum Pum disappointed deeply and Aja Nachle, otherwise not such a bad film, was marketed so poorly that it had a lukewarm response at the box office.
This year Tashan had been billed as the big movie of the summer. It had everything going for it -- a new look Saif Ali Khan, gorgeous Kareena Kappor in a two-piece bikini and that man with the midas touch at the box office, Akshay Kumar. In the end, all of them plus Anil Kapoor failed to save what was essentially, for the lack of a better word, a remarkably stupid film.
The really sad part of the whole thing is that as a teen when I first got hooked to movies, it was Yash Chopra's movies that showed me what Tashan was all about. For me, and I am sure for thousands of others, too, Tashan was when Amitabh Bachchan, with a beedi between his lips and his eyes all brooding, locks the godown door in Deewar, throws the keys to Peter, and says : "Ye chabi tere hi jeb se nikalunga, Peter." Now, that was Tashan, that gave you goose pimples.
Again, Tashan was when Shatrughan Sinha asks a group of baddies in Kala Paththar, "Dhanna, is ladki ko to mai bacha loonga, par is bhari jungle mein, tum sab ko mujhse kaun bachayega?" Now, Kala Paththar was all about Tashan. Even that Shashi Kapoor one-liner, "Tumne kabhi soda ke saath dalmuth khaya hai kya?", was sooo classy, I mean tashni.
And then there is this Tashan.
For me the defining, even defiling, moment of the film was when the three protagonists Akshay, Saif and Kareena are travelling in the back of a truck. Kareena takes a pair of scissors and begins to slice off her pair of jeans at her thighs, until she turns it into a rather short denim shorts. As the cameraman focuses on Kareena's bare thighs, an apparently naive, and needless to say, terribly shocked Akshay says : "Ye kya kar rahe ho? (what are you doing?)" Kareena giggles dumbly and says, "Kuchh nahi, bas Tashan (nothing, just Tashan)"
I thought from that point on the film was irredeemable. If Aditya Chopra thinks he can lure thousands into cinema halls by promising them a tantalising glimpse of Kareena Kapoor's upper thighs then I think it is time he considers alternative career options. For God's sake, these are not Ram Teri Ganga Maili days of Raj Kapoor. Porn is available at the click of a mouse all over the internet. Surely a little bit of flesh display isn't going to pull in the crowds.
Me and the entire hall groaned, not entirely inaudibly either. Oh Bebo, sweertheart, honeybunch, I wanted to cry out aloud, that ain't Tashan. I mean if you really think that's Tashan, I guess then, in Anil Kapoorese, I would have to say, "Tashan, mera gadha", which crudely translates into Tashan, my ass.
For a while now, the fizz has been missing from the Yash Chopra stable of movies. Last year could have been disastrous, had Chak De not saved their blushes. Jhoom Barabar Jhoom was an astonishingly bad film and to no one's surprise bombed spectacularly, Tara Rum Pum disappointed deeply and Aja Nachle, otherwise not such a bad film, was marketed so poorly that it had a lukewarm response at the box office.
This year Tashan had been billed as the big movie of the summer. It had everything going for it -- a new look Saif Ali Khan, gorgeous Kareena Kappor in a two-piece bikini and that man with the midas touch at the box office, Akshay Kumar. In the end, all of them plus Anil Kapoor failed to save what was essentially, for the lack of a better word, a remarkably stupid film.
The really sad part of the whole thing is that as a teen when I first got hooked to movies, it was Yash Chopra's movies that showed me what Tashan was all about. For me, and I am sure for thousands of others, too, Tashan was when Amitabh Bachchan, with a beedi between his lips and his eyes all brooding, locks the godown door in Deewar, throws the keys to Peter, and says : "Ye chabi tere hi jeb se nikalunga, Peter." Now, that was Tashan, that gave you goose pimples.
Again, Tashan was when Shatrughan Sinha asks a group of baddies in Kala Paththar, "Dhanna, is ladki ko to mai bacha loonga, par is bhari jungle mein, tum sab ko mujhse kaun bachayega?" Now, Kala Paththar was all about Tashan. Even that Shashi Kapoor one-liner, "Tumne kabhi soda ke saath dalmuth khaya hai kya?", was sooo classy, I mean tashni.
And then there is this Tashan.
For me the defining, even defiling, moment of the film was when the three protagonists Akshay, Saif and Kareena are travelling in the back of a truck. Kareena takes a pair of scissors and begins to slice off her pair of jeans at her thighs, until she turns it into a rather short denim shorts. As the cameraman focuses on Kareena's bare thighs, an apparently naive, and needless to say, terribly shocked Akshay says : "Ye kya kar rahe ho? (what are you doing?)" Kareena giggles dumbly and says, "Kuchh nahi, bas Tashan (nothing, just Tashan)"
I thought from that point on the film was irredeemable. If Aditya Chopra thinks he can lure thousands into cinema halls by promising them a tantalising glimpse of Kareena Kapoor's upper thighs then I think it is time he considers alternative career options. For God's sake, these are not Ram Teri Ganga Maili days of Raj Kapoor. Porn is available at the click of a mouse all over the internet. Surely a little bit of flesh display isn't going to pull in the crowds.
Me and the entire hall groaned, not entirely inaudibly either. Oh Bebo, sweertheart, honeybunch, I wanted to cry out aloud, that ain't Tashan. I mean if you really think that's Tashan, I guess then, in Anil Kapoorese, I would have to say, "Tashan, mera gadha", which crudely translates into Tashan, my ass.
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