“Yeh hain aasli Bhaiyyaji” shouts Anil Kapoor playing the role of don Bhaiyyaji as he rips open his shirt, in the process revealing a plot twist I can honestly say I never saw coming.

The twist in question being that, perhaps in keeping with today’s “chikna” aesthetics, someone had shaven Anil Kapoor’s legendary mane of chest hair (which was, as far as I know, one of the world’s last natural rain forests) exposing in the process Mr. Jhakaas’s mannaries (man-mammaries) and his “One Two Ka Four, Four Two Ka One” packs. [Explicative picture to left]

Which leads me to once again acknowledge the wisdom of that immortal line spoken by Khulbushan Kharbandha in Gupt :

“Kuch baatein gupt raheni chahiye” (Some things are best kept hidden).

If you thought that it was Kareena Kapoor’s hot body that would stay in your mind after the end credits of “Tashan” , then forget it. She has nothing on Anil Kapoor. And I mean that in every sense of the word.

As to “Tashan” , supposedly the most awaited movie of the year, I can say after having labored through this cinematic quagmire that”Tashaan” too should have, like Mr. Ring-Rong-Ring’s chest, stayed hidden, unreleased and unseen to the human eye, under two baniyans, a shirt and a sweater.

A cross/double-cross action-road movie that turns into a Yashraj mushy romance midway through with generous helpings of “Kill Bill”-type massively over-the-top action sequences, one can vaguely discern that the directors of “Tashan” were trying to be “smart”, giving discerning viewers a “nudge-nudge-wink-wink” spoof of Hindi action movies.

Very cool.

But for the “spoof/homage” angle to have worked, the script should have been funny with smart dialogues and snappy comebacks.

It doesn’t have even one.

Sample this. Anil Kapoor as the don Bhaiyya brandishes a bat in front of a businessman and then delivers a lame badass line which goes:

“I am the Sachin Tendulkar and the Brian Lara mixed.”

And then proceeds to break the man’s skull with the bat.

Now wouldn’t it have been better had Anil Kapoor, after giving this line, swung at the man’s head, missed the skull totally, looked perplexed and then said:

“But it looks as if hum Sourav Ganguly”.

Okay that’s pretty lame too. At least I am not a script writer.

The big problem is that most of Tashan’s so-called laughs are made to originate from just one principal comedic hook—-Anil Kapoor’s English-mix-Hindi. Which could possibly have made an impact had not Naseeruddin Shah as Mastana in Bombay Boys already done the exact same thing, ten years ago, only much better. Akshay Kumar tries his best and manages to inject some life into some of the scenes but in the presence of a scenery-chewing Anil Kapoor, a listless Saif Ali Khan and a “Oh look I am so hawt and saxy and thin” Kareena Kapoor , the odds against Akshay Kumar are hopelessly stacked.

Summing up, “Tashan” is a horrible waste of celluloid and time which, like most of Yashraj’s latest offerings seem to sacrifice content, script, story and character-development for cinematic “tashan”.

Shaving Anil Kapoor’s chest with a wool shearer would surely be more entertaining than watching this mess.