You leave the theatre with a sense of disappointment after Tees Maar Khan not because it's as bad as the reviews say it is but because it could have been so much better with a little more effort at a proper storyline. Sad because it's a film by Farah Khan, who has spun such rollicking yarns before like Om Shanti Om and Main Hoon Na.
Whatever else they may not have been, those earlier movies were certainly not boring despite being fanciful. TMK is certainly fanciful but borders (I repeat, borders) on the boring. I'm sure many would love to disagree and go the whole hog and junk it.
There are scenes where conman Tees Maar Khan is tearing his hair out to explain to his actors what to enact in his fake movie. I guess that’s scriptwriter Shirish Kunder putting a little bit of himself in the script.
The biggest failure of TMK is its casting, not because they don’t perform but because an Akshay Kumar or a Katrina Kaif was simply not needed. This movie would have perhaps worked much better with non-stars or lesser known stars like Ranvir Shorey or Vinay Pathak or a Rajpal Yadav. What was the point of casting Akshay-Katrina if you were not going to give them a love story to enact. The hottest pair of the last decade was absolutely wasted. And why cast a talented actor like Akshaye Khanna in a role that demands so little? And what a waste of a gifted comic actor like Ali Asgar.
That’s the story of TMK – all-round waste of everything. A potentially good story squandered, good actors misused, an item number that’s like lunch before breakfast (what a waste of Sheila ki jawani) and a complete massacre of that Mahendra Kapoor-Manoj Kumar classic, ‘Mere desh ki dharti’. The use of the song in TMK does raise laughs but it also makes you sad at the inappropriate usage. Would somebody do that to Rafi’s immortal ‘Ab tumhare hawale watan sathiyon’ from Haqeeqat? I doubt it.
And this is the first time that a Farah Khan film has such indifferent music. Vishal-Shekhar disappoints. Even ‘Sheila ki jawani’ is an average song, saved only by Katrina’s belly pyrotechnics. She has worked her abs off for the number but for what. There is none of Sheila’s spunk in the rest of Anya, the character Katrina plays.
TMK relies entirely on Akshay’s broad shoulders to carry it. And Akshay is to blame to a great extent. What’s he doing producing such a movie? His choice of films of late have been seriously suspect but now his choice of productions too are… Hopefully, Khiladi Kumar will pull himself back before it’s too late.
The script sets out to spoof 1970s potboilers, with the birth of the hero in a hospital ward, his delayed and suspenseful introduction, the ma-beta-honewali bahu camaraderie. If only TMK had not outright spoofed but played it straight like a retro movie (like Om Shanti Om or Once Upon A Time in Mumbai), it would have worked.
The cops and robber theme, the police conference (both staples of ’70s cinema), the group song in the ‘khet’ (from the ’60s), the over-the-top ‘chor’ hero, the resurrection of the Muslim milieu (although fake) that is full of green tubelights, a studio set, the gaudy shirt, the skull cap, the kohl-eyed heroine in ghagra-kurti (remember Amar Akbar Anthony) – all this could have added up to something truly entertaining.
The plethora of supposedly gay characters was an absolute put-off. An apparently gay village trio is addressed ‘girls’ by Katrina’s character. And Tees Maar Khan’s three henchmen act queer. Weird! Or is this a reflection of Bollywood reality?
In the final assessment, this is a con job on the movie-loving public and the filmmakers can’t even pull a fast one. But I would still give it 6 on 10, which is worth one viewing, if only for Sheila ki jawani and Akshay’s valiant but misplaced act to pull off a non-starter, and the Oscar-winning-spree spoof as the end-credits roll. That last bit is really telling.
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