Monday Apr 28 2:05 PM
Joginder Tuteja, Bollywood Trade News Network
BHAGAM BHAG, NAMASTEY LONDON, HEYY BABYY, BHOOL BHULAIYYA, WELCOME.With five successful films in a row, it seemed like Akshay Kumar couldn't put a foot wrong. Especially so with releases like TASHAN, SINGH IS KINNG, CHANDNI CHOWK TO CHINA and KAMBAKKTH ISHQ as his upcoming releases and sure shot blockbusters in the making. It was meant to be a perfect 10 in the offering.
However, that wasn't meant to be as law of averages has finally struck. And struck hard.
TASHAN has proved to be a disaster. Whether box office too would tell the same story is something that the weekdays would convey (chances seem slim though if the film would be able to recover from bad word of mouth) but at least amongst the audience, the film has proved to be a massive disappointment. The film has failed to deliver, and how!
This translates into the fact that Akshay Kumar finds a speed breaker in his golden run and would now have his eyes set on SINGH IS KINNG, his next release. So is there any silver lining here? Well, quite a strong one actually! In this out and out mayhem which goes by the name of TASHAN, it is only Akshay Kumar who has come out unscathed and has been appreciated most for his performance and characterization (in no particular order) even though rest of the film (as well as the characters) is nothing more than caricature.
As Bachchan Pandey, Akshay has managed to get the graph of his rustic character perfectly right and has brought life to the narrative of TASHAN which often ranges from being 'OK' to 'Oh My God'. His introductory scene as Ravana and the 'Ramleela' that follows is worth the price of the ticket while his naughty little tiffs with Kareena Kapoor, especially in their initial portions together, are done with a charming awkwardness.
In fact one shudders to think what would TASHAN have been if not for Akshay Kumar. As a 'hanuman bhakt' who wants the lady of his house to be all dressed up and 'sanskaari', he is the sole entity which provides some fun quotient to this film by Vijay Krishna Acharya which makes RAM GOPAL VARMA KI AAG seem like a classic.
However, the fact remains that in spite of him having fun in this spectacle in futility, Akshay Kumar would eventually have a failure to his name!
