Tashan (film)


Tashan is a 2008 Indian action comedy film starring Akshay Kumar, Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor and Anil Kapoor in the lead roles. Produced by Aditya Chopra and Yash Chopra of Yash Raj Films, it was released on 25 April 2008, and marked the directorial debut of Vijay Krishna Acharya.

Plot

Jeetendra Kumar Makhwana a.k.a. Jimmy Cliff is a call center executive who also teaches English. Pooja Singh shows up outside his class and says she needs private tutoring. Without any hesitation, Jimmy quickly agrees as he has already fallen in love with her; he later finds out that Pooja's boss Lakhan Singh Ballebaaz a.k.a. Bhaiyyaji is the one who has to be tutored. As their love grows, Pooja reveals that she is only working for Bhaiyyaji to pay her debts, so she can then go to Haridwar to scatter her father's ashes. They decide to steal Bhaiyyaji's money and run away. The couple succeeds in their mission, and Jimmy asks Pooja to guard the money while he goes to the call center to tell them he is leaving.
At the call center, Jimmy learns that Bhaiyyaji is a maverick gangster who enjoys killing people and goes home to warn Pooja. Unexpectedly, Pooja has run away with all the money and she meets a bank manager to deposit the money in the bank locker. He initially disagrees and Pooja puts her hands inside his pocket and he agrees. Bhaiyyaji hires Bachchan Pandey, a gangster, to catch Jimmy. After getting caught, Jimmy and Bachchan head towards Haridwar to find Pooja and recover Bhaiyyaji's money. When they reach there, Pooja sees them and runs away. Unable to find Pooja there, Jimmy and Bachchan set off to find her again. While on the road, the duo got into a silly fight about the radio station and their car falls into the water.
Along with Jimmy and Bachchan, Pooja comes out of the water too. She had been hiding in their trunk the whole time. She tells them that she has hidden the money in seven different places across India. Jimmy and Pooja decide to run away with the money. The duo decided that Pooja should seduce Bachchan just like she did Jimmy. She tries to seduce him but finds out that they are each other's childhood loves, and they both fall in love. After recovering all of the money, Bachchan decides to leave with it, not knowing that Jimmy has replaced the money with stones.
When Pooja realises what he has done, she tells Jimmy the truth about Bhaiyyaji killing her father. To save Bachchan, Pooja and Jimmy head to Bhaiyyaji's lair with the money. When they get there, Jimmy pretends to betray Pooja and slaps Bachchan. He tells Bhaiyyaji to give him his gun so that he can kill Bachchan. After getting the gun, Jimmy instead points it to Bhaiyyaji and takes him hostage. He heads towards a car with Pooja and Bachchan following him. Surrounded by Bhaiyyaji's henchmen with guns, Bhaiyyaji manages to jump out of the car and everybody begins shooting at them. After a lengthy fight scene, Bhaiyyaji is killed by Pooja who stabs him with a knife. In the end, Jimmy opens up his own call centre, where only girls work, and Bachchan and Pooja get married.

Cast

Pre-production began in late 2006 with Akshay Kumar being signed first, and Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor next. In early 2007, Anil Kapoor was signed on to play a negative role in the film. This film continued Khan's long-standing successful collaboration with Yash Raj Films. It also marked a return for three of its lead actors to Yash Raj Films: Kumar was previously cast in Dil To Pagal Hai whilst Kareena and Anil Kapoor were last seen in Mujhse Dosti Karoge! and Lamhe, respectively.
Apart from the major star cast, Khan's son, Ibrahim, also made his acting debut, where he played the younger version of his father's character. Sources later indicated that all the actors would be seen sporting new looks designed by designer Aki Narula.
In June 2007, the cast began filming in Kerala, and later continued shooting in Ladakh and Rajasthan. Pictures of Khan and Kareena Kapoor were taken in September 2007 while shooting for the film in the Fort area of Mumbai. Some portions of the film were later shot in the city of Haridwar on the banks of the river Ganges. The video clips of two songs were made in Milos Island and Nafplio in Greece
The first promo was shown on 30 November 2007 with the release of Anil Mehta's Aaja Nachle. In a poll conducted by indiaFM, Tashan ranked first on the list of "Most Awaited Movies of 2008". To promote the film, Yash Raj Films built communities on social networking sites like Facebook, Orkut and YouTube.

Reception

Box office

Before the release of the film, Tashan received an advance booking, which ranged from 25-35% tickets sold for the weekend at the major centres. On the day of its release, the film opened to a 75-80% response but well short of the expected bumper opening due to the multiplex revenue sharing problem, which didn't allow the film to be released in major multiplexes across India. Due to this, the film lost a major chunk of its revenue and collected a total of 180 million after its first week. Although the following week, an agreement was made between Yash Raj Films and the multiplexes, which allowed the film to be screened from 3 May 2008 onwards at multiplexes across the country, the film managed to add only another 70 million to its collections and was declared below average.
Meanwhile, the film opened to below average response overseas. During its first week, the film collected £181,838 on 46 screens and debuted at number 13 in the U.K charts. In the United States, the film debuted at number 24 and collected US$301,226 on 75 screens whilst in Australia, Tashan debuted at number 17 and collected a total of $148,087 on 13 screens. During its second week in the overseas market, the film experienced a heavy fall and was declared a below average.

Reception

Tashan opened to mixed reviews. Most of the Indian critics criticized the film's lackluster script penned by director Vijay Krishna Acharya. Critic Taran Adarsh from indiaFM gave the film a 1.5 out of 5 rating and concluded that it was "...one of the weakest films to come out of the Yash Raj banner." Rajeev Masand from CNN-IBN described the film as "...a road movie...that is going in all the wrong directions." On the other hand, Sanjay Ram, who gave the film 3.5 stars out of 5, wrote, "The film, though with many slips, is thoroughly engaging and entertaining. The vibrancy and spunk keeps it alive and loaded."
US critics were favourable. Rachel Saltz of The New York Times wrote, "The giddy camera work and busy visual effects would be exhausting if their excess didn't fit so well with the movie’s tongue-in-cheek tone". Frank Lovece of Film Journal International found it "crowded with dizzying visuals, dry humor, cartoonishly violent set-pieces that play like Indian spaghetti Westerns, and gorgeously shot musical numbers. Maitland McDonagh of TV Guide described the film as "a delirious crime romp borrows pop-savvy attitude from Quentin Tarantino, stylised gun play from Sergio Leone and stylised hand-to-hand combat moves from Hong Kong action films. The result is a nutty, ridiculously entertaining neo-noir pastiche with lavish musical numbers."
The reviews regarding the performances of the lead actors varied. Taran Adarsh noted, "Tashan belongs to Akshay Kumar completely. No two opinions on that. Take Akshay out of this film and the movie is a big zero. He's the lifeline of this project... Kareena Kapoor is fantastic. She looks gorgeous, acts very well." Sonia Chopra from Sify concluded, "It is Akshay and Kareena who sizzle in the film and have the best parts." On the other hand, Anil Kapoor and Saif Ali Khan's performances met with mixed reactions. Sonia Chopra further explained "Anil plays the baddie to the hilt... Saif...gives a strictly lukewarm performance."

Music

Released on 28 March 2008 by Yash Raj Films, Tashan's soundtrack was composed by Vishal-Shekhar, whilst the lyrics were penned by four different lyricists: Piyush Mishra, Anvita Dutt Guptan, Vishal Dadlani and Kausar Munir. Joginder Tuteja from IndiaFM gave the film's soundtrack 4 out of 5 stars and noted, "Songs in Tashan excite, get on to you quickly and make you put them on a repeat mode". There is not a single dull moment in this entire album which has its tallest highpoints in "Dil Dance Maare", "Dil Haara" and "Falak Tak".
The soundtrack of the film debuted at number 3, where it stayed the following week. On the week of the film's release, the album moved up to number 1. According to the Indian trade website Box Office India, with around 15,00,000 units sold, this film's soundtrack album was the year's ninth highest-selling.