The Ishtyle and the Stupidity

What can one say about something that knocks you out and when you wake up, you are still laughing but do not remember the joke?

Tashan is all that and more.

With Anil Kapoor doing a tapori for the umpteenth time. Akshay Kumar as the bumbling idiot who can fight a hundred men. Saif the stylish guy. And Kareena doing her silly laughter that she calls acting. I mean Jab We Met seems like millions of years away.

Actually the Tashan is a landmark film for Yash Raj. First the subject is so regressive and 80's, it seems like we are going back to Jumping Jack Jeetu and Mithun da era. Whoever said that small town stories have to be loud and regressive? It seems like Haasil and Omkara have been forgotten. We are back to silly men fighting over money and women.

Just before the release of the film, Yash Raj got into a fight with multiplex theater owners and therefore the film was only shown in single screen halls which are very rare in Delhi. This also meant that a lot of the rich and nouveau rich (call centre types) did not even know that the film had been released. This is not the first time that such a fight has happened between YR and the theatre owners, but Tashan was the ideal film for this crisis. The front benchers would lap it up.

Imagine Anil Kapoor playing the same role he played twenty years earlier. I mean a fatter Anil Kapoor, with body wax and the same three-day beard. Apparently since he had to do a body wax for five days, the city of Bombay ran out of body wax and it had to be imported from Dubai. Akshay Kumar doing his version of Amitabh of the 80's. Saif the bumbling Shashi Kapoor updated to 2007. Kareena replacing Parveen Babi. The audience might have thought that they had been transported back in time. There is even a dialogue from Deewar (English version for the new age call centre audience) thrown in to confuse you further.

That dialogue must have warmed up Yash Chopra too when he saw the film and he must have cried. Out of nostalgia or pain am not sure.

PS Am glad that I had to go to Sangam to watch the Ishtyle of Yash Raj. I only ended up blowing up a hundred bucks on a ticket, popcorn and Coke. Bring back those time again !

For a comprehensive review about what went wrong with the Tashan go here !