Bollywood is reeling under a loss of more than Rs. s.300 crores for the year and the collective losses of three recent big budget movies, 'Action Replayy', 'Guzaarish' and 'Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Se', are anywhere between Rs. 80 to 90 Crores. The mood of the industry is dull especially because movies by directors such as Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Ashutosh Gowarikar and Vipul Shah have failed at the box office. Nothing has worked at the box office since October. That’s why everyone is watching 'Tees Maar Khan' closely.
TMK's success is important for Akshay and Farah as Akshay had more flops than hits in last couple of years and this is his make or break film. First two films of Farah Khan were hit but SRK got the credit for those so she is under pressure to prove herself all over again.
First let's talk about the plot (which is shamelessly lifted from 1966 Hollywood flick 'After The Fox' and two days prior to release Producers of 'TMK' had bought rights of remake from MGM fearing a backlash later). Akshay is playing conman Tabrez Ali Khan who keeps messing up with his heists. He has three more members in gang by the name of Burger,Soda and Dollar.Katrina plays an upcoming heroine cum item girl named Anya who is in love with Tabrez. She is always busy in putting more and more make up on her face. One fine day Johari brothers (Raghu and Rajiv of Roadies fame) assigned Tabrez a job to steal antiques worth Rs. 500 crores from a moving train and that forms the climax of the film. There are few surprises and to find out who is 'Tees Maar Khan', you need to watch the film especially the climax.Film got very thin,fragile and repetitive storyline and screenplay is average. Writing is as poor as it was in Main Hoon Na and gags are loud typical Farah style. But Farah again decorate film well with hit songs and larger than life sequences(Watch out for especially made train in climax worth Rs. 75 lakhs). Good thing about Frah Khan is that she sticks to her strength of delivering masala entertainer and bad thing is that she does not give you anything new.
Akshay Kumar performs well but still far from his best. He is good but looks jaded and needs a break to re energize himself. But Katrina surprises big time. She lifts the film on her shoulder and even in a not so important or impressive role still she makes you smile every time she comes on screen. She is no doubt carries the film single handedly and 'Sheila Ki Jawani' even after overkill looks hot on screen. Raghu and Rajeev have small roles and they are good and Akshay Khanna is second surprise package after Katrina. He plays a guy who is desperate to win Oscar award (his character ridicules Aamir Khan from 'Rang De Basanti' and 'Mangal Pandey-The Rising'). Film is full of potshots on vast range of things, from Aamir and his movies to Slumdog Millionaire's Jai Ho' into 'Day Ho' and Farah also makes fun of her last release 'OSO' (make sure you don't miss end credits).
Film is full of guest appearances. Salman Khan appears in one song 'Wallah Re Wallah' but he remains under utilized which may irritate his fan base. Co Producer Twinkle Khanna makes a guest appearance in end credits in similar fashion as Gauri Khan did in Om Shanti Om. And other two guest artists are Anil Kapoor and Chunkey Pandey who are entangled in Holi celebrations. Plus there is voice over by Sanjay Dutt.
Barring 'Sheila Ki Jawani' all songs are boring and hardly leaves any impact and especially beware of irritating 'Bade Dilwala'. All in all music is a real let down from Farah Khan after giving two great albums 'Main Hoon Na' and 'OSO'. SO NOW MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION IS, WILL FARAH KHAN BE LUCKY THIRD TIME? Although film is not up to the mark and critics in general will not like it but heavy marketing, shorter duration (only 127 minutes), hit item number, 'Katrina' factor and few edge of the seat sequences will carry the film at least initially. Budget of the film is 50 crores and film is set for BLOCKBUSTER first weekend and should collect in excess of 40 crores nett ('Dabanng' collected 48 crores, '3 Idiots' collected 40 crores, 'Golmaal 3' collected 35 crores and 'Rajneeti' collected 33.5 crores in first weekend) at least by 26th december.
I AM TALKING FIGURES NOT IN QUALITATIVE TERMS like film is good or bad or average. ONLY QUALITATIVE BLAH BLAH IS A SIGN OF MEDIOCRITY THAT'S WHAT ALL CRITICS IN INDIA DO. I AM NOT BOASTING JUST SHARING MY THOUGHT AND GUESSING IN OPEN SO THAT READING THIS REVIEW BECOMES MORE ENTERTAINING FOR ALL AND IF I FAIL THEN I SHOULD CORRECT MY REVIEWS like it happens in hollywood or in other mature markets.
A REVIEW WITHOUT NUMBERS IS JUST ABOUT PLAYING SAFE SO LETS SEE IF I HIT THE BULL'S EYE OR NOT BUT 'TEES MAAR KHAN' DOES THAT FOR SURE IN TERMS OF INITIAL COLLECTIONS and may end up breaking 'opening' (first weekend collection) records of 'Dabanng'.
(And special thanks to my friends in Dubai who shared their thoughts on movie in order to make this review possible before movie's release in India)
