Tashan is Saif Ali Khan's first investment in the Roulet machine titled 'Bollywood' in gay glitteraty. And from the look of things, his start is as promising as a new groom in bed. Tashan's greatness lies in the fact that it takes the Lord's message, packages it in some reflective party gel and just as you are about to dismiss it as an overpriced masala flick, it does a Jack in the Box with the lead 'actors' in wigs of colors that fat Gujarati businessmen die their graying hair to, crooning such metaphorical lyrics as 'Tohre dil ke thaeter ma dil deewana advance booking mare re", almost as if making a promise spanning several births, for the film to continue running house full in all theaters of the land. Surely, even Sir Winston Churchill would agree that this is globalization at its peak - the very idea of white people singing in Bhojpuri. If only the makers of Mangal Pandey - The Rising had seen Tashan before, they wouldn't have had to incur such heavy losses.
The simplicity of the script catches you unaware as you walk in twenty minutes late (probably because you didn't get tickets to any other show and then took your time before deciding that you were ready to completely open yourself up emotionally to Tashan). There is a taboo love story brewing between the handlebar mustached Jimmy (Saif), who only taak Englis, waak English becoj Englis is a bhery phunny language, and the anorexic Pooja (Kareena), who has given up food to save up to repay the overtly avuncular don Bhaiya Ji (Anil Kapoor), trying to be overtly brotherly, who [Spoiler Alert] wears Rupa underwear and overtly porous Rupa banyan. Inside sources claim that inspired by the great Toshiro Mifune, who had based the movements of his character in Kurosawa's Yojimbo on the lion, Kapoor spent several months in isolation with alcoholic sloth bears with a penchant for tharra, made in the heartland of the country - UP.
The omnipresent Amitabh Bachhan makes his usual appearance, but this time only lending, no not his voice, but his name to Bachhan Pandey (Akshay Kumar). Bachhan is a PhD student doing his thesis on 'The Virtues of the Dark Side". His current semester projects include studying what really went on in each of Ravan's ten heads when he realized he was more in love with Ram than Sita. Needless to say, he has no funding, and thus needs to help dons with extortions and shadow batting for the Delhi Daredevils to maintain his fit body.
However, like all good samaritan masala movies made in this millennium, Tashan has a twist. Of course, it is still a love story, but the key players change. I would not like to spoil it for any of you and reveal the exact permutation of the two out of these four characters that take us on a pedophiliac, yet voyeuristic journey of their childhood and show us how coolness in Kanpur is defined by how much electricity you can steal.
The film's overall feel and brilliant hamming by Anil Kapoor is marred by some good comic timing by Kumar, but overlooking that and some refreshing cinematography, especially during the songs, the film is consistent with a thrilling, logic-redefining climax, that involves a cycle rickshaw decked up like Mrs. Teja during Lodi. The very deliberate trashing of logic as we know it, gives birth to a new school of editing and sets a new benchmark for directors who shoot lackluster, dull action sequences (in comparison of course) movies like Gadar and Kill Bill.
The songs are OK, but what will make the music album fly off the shelves is the poetry - an hors d'oeuvre of the characters repeating their respective tashans, including a rendition of Anil Kapoor's imagined version of Kabhi Kabhi in Bhojpuri. Daft that I am, the significance of the repetitiveness of the tashans eluded me, but soon the child next to me, with a visage and voice as peaceful as Dharamputr Sunny, asked his creator, "Mummy, what is Tashan?", and she, with the dismissive laziness, only matched by the gait of a Bengali who has just had lunch, in her voice, much like the Dream Girl, said "Shut up and go to sleep". It is then that I realized that no one can tell you what tashan is. You have to discover it for yourself. Some may discover it in the lazy afternoon swings of cows' tails they are trying to milk, in the coolness of a cowshed somewhere in the heartland, while some may discover it in the shrillness of Bapi Da's high notes, even others while their SO refuses that extra spoon of sugar in their morning coffee, and for some, sitting through the entire film without a single break.
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