Release date (India):
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December 5, 2014
|
Director:
|
Prabhudheva
|
Cast:
Language: |
Ajay Devgn,
Sonakshi Sinha, Manasvi Mamgai, Yami Gautam, Kunaal Roy Kapur, Anantharaaj,
Guest appearances: Shahid Kapoor, Prabhas, Prabhudheva
Hindi
|
Ingredients:
–
hero
(dubbal role mein)
–
heroine (in fact, do do heroine-ay!)
–
vamp (bahut
hot si)
–
villain (ek
aankh waala)
–
gaana
–
bajaana
–
bade star ka guest appearance
–
romance (hero no. 1 ka)
–
dukh bhari back story (hero no. 2 ka)
–
maa (Yami isme Mummy banti hai)
–
weird
bhai-behen ka weird pyaar
–
Mumbai nagri
–
phoren locayshun
–
badey-badey sets
–
chhote-chhote kapde
pehni hui girlz
–
shirt utaarke abs dikhaane waala bwoy
–
Punjabi gaana
–
godown mein fight
Bhala aur kya chahiye logon ko?
Well, how about coherence
and originality?
Director Prabhudheva’s Action Jackson is an unbelievably disjointed,
unimaginative, unamusing wonder that chucks into the cooking pot, all sorts of
ingredients that have worked in formulaic films of the past. Virtually storyless
though it is, here’s a spoiler-filled shot at relating the plot…
So first we meet one
Vishy in Mumbai who beats up people in gravity-defying style and does do-numberi-ka-kaam, as his neighbour
Aunty says. Then a bubbly girl called Khushi (Sonakshi Sinha) sees him in a
clothing store trial room where he is (get this!) trying out underwear, and later
when he emerges from a toilet after doing susu.
I don’t know which clothing store in Mumbai allows people to try out chaddis, but be warned if you go
shopping in that city.
So anyway, Khushi has
seen Vishy’s thingie, which somehow turns her fortunes. Which makes her want to
see his thingie again before an Amreeka-based boy comes ladki dekhne ke liye, because she thinks Vishy’s thingie is a good-luck
charm. But Amreeka-based boy doesn’t stand a chance because he is not played by
a major Bollywood star. Plus, Vishy is played by Ajay Devgn so how can she fall
in love with anyone else, you silly-question-asking people.
Khushi soon falls for
Vishy because when she falls unconscious in his house, he doesn’t change her kapda but maintains her laaj by getting neighbour Aunty to do
the deed. Besides, he does nice things for poor people, being bad guy with
heart of gold and all that, you know. You know?
Enter: second Ajay Devgn.
Whoa! What a twist! He is first Ajay Devgn’s humshakal. Why? Bichhda hua
judwaa bhai, you ask? No no, he is humshakal
because he is humshakal. You didn’t
ask questions when it happened in Don
in 1978 so why discriminate now, stupids?
Bangkok-based AJ works
for ek aankh waala gangster. He also
has a girlfriend-turned-wife (Yami Gautam). Enter: ek aankh waala gangster’s bad sister Marina (Manasvi Mamgai) in
thigh-revealing outfits and cigarette between lips. Now phillum launches into Fatal
Attraction-type obsessive love saga complete with daayin laugh in background and girl kissing boy as though her lips
are “a vacuum cleaner” (not my words, his).
Vishy and AJ meet. Lots
of people get beaten up. Arms and necks are twisted. Ajay as Vishy clowns
around while bashing up local goondas.
Ajay as AJ takes off his shirt and poses about artistically to bash up international
gangstas. Beech-beech mein, lots of
people dance to loud songs in loud costumes on gaudy sets featuring every single
colour of the rainbow. Uskey beech mein
Vishy’s sidekick (Kunaal Roy Kapur) appears – to be funny – and disappears.
The unwitting star of Action Jackson – in a good way and a bad
way – is debutant Manasvi Mamgai, former Miss India. When she’s trying to look ominous,
she’s a hoot. Not her fault, the film is just THAT silly. In fact, she’s
featured in a scene that teeters on a precipice between offensive and
laughable: AJ has come to save Marina from being raped by a hooligan and while
he’s fighting them, shirtless of course, she’s ogling him through a curtain of
her hair! Ugh!
But don’t write her off.
In that scene in which she raises a leg shoulder-high to kick a man out of a
high-rise building’s window, she displays a skill that ought to find a place in
A-class action flicks. And in the song You’re
my gangster baby, notice how uninhibited she is, how completely not
body-conscious, so lost in the moment that she makes Ajay look like a prop. Of
course the impact of all that is vastly diluted by the fact that AJ casually
kicks Marina aside at one point while she lies on the floor. Yes, rips off his
own shirt, fires a gun and kicks her. I kid not.
At the end of this
mind-numbingly unentertaining film, I consoled myself with the closing credits
in which Prabhudheva (kindly note the spelling) appears in his dance-wiz avatar
playing choreographer to the lead cast. He’s so vastly superior to Ajay in that
department, that you can’t help but appreciate Ajay for sportingly demonstrating
his shortcomings to the world.
What he was thinking
when he accepted this film though is a mystery that may never be solved!
Rating (out of five): 1/2 star (for the scenes that were so bad, they made me giggle)
CBFC Rating (India):
|
U/A (this rating epitomises the double
standards of a Censor system that awarded an A certificate to the Rani
Mukerji-starrer Mardaani for its
relatively brief scenes of violence in comparison with the grossly bloody Ghajini from 2008, Force in 2011 and now Action Jackson that have all got away
with a milder U/A)
|
Running time:
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145 minutes
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