Folks,

Caught a screening of one of the bigger films of 2008, TASHAN, in LA this weekend.

They say a movie is all about stars (this one had 4)

& what now.

I laugh loudest when I hear/see arguments over camera angles/techniques/film vs digital/ other technical stuff. But this one had all the right technical and flashy stuff. Super production values

& what now.

They say it is all about marketing. This film was on all the channels, had some prize rushes and trailers on music channels, yahoogroups, print media, online media, etc , etc. Noise was being made

& what now.

They say, give them gloss and music and you are done. This one had relative gloss

& what now.

Some yahoogroups and self styled gurus of marketing claim that it is all about controversy. This one started the controversial relationship between Saif and Kareena

& what now.

They say "they" have got their business sense just right. "They" are great marketers/strategists, etc, etc. TASHAN had all of that

& what now.

That's right what other dumb/nitwit/bird brained theory will the so called "we know it all," "we are smart," "we have a business education," "we are successful entrepreneurs," come out with next?????

IN THE ABSENCE OF A GOOD SCRIPT, that is.

When a good script is missing and it has holes, then nothing...and I mean nothing...can redeem it, cause the most basic human instinct is one of brains and intelligence. You cannot assume your audience is dumb, cause they are not. They are in control here and whether you like it or not, film is all about a good product, the good service can fly out of the window and a good product is one that has a good script, it's skeleton and TASHAN has a terrible script, as did a few of the other "star studded" films of recent times did...Laaga Chunari/Aaja Nach Le/ Ram Gopal Ke/Jhoom Barabar/Tara Rum/ Crash/Sunday/etc etc....pathetic scripts, correlating to a sorry film.

An example of how bad things get in dialogue and script is:

Akshay saying towards the end that "when the need arises even novices have to lift a gun." Ok and what about the fact that the same "novice" has just shot to death approx 100 cops an hour earlier in the same film in front of the same audience!!!!

Or

The hero and heroine retiring to their "village" (agian an insult to one of the most industrialized town of India) Kanpur! Oh I forgot to mention that I don't have an issue with their retiring, except that they (the couple) have in combination killed approx 200 cops in the same film...but it's ok, they are basically decent!!!! But the bad guy...oh he killed a lot less....cops that is...but he is basically bad!!!

I mean come on. Don't insult the audience.

And don't blame the IPL, Multiplexes not showing it, rain, sunshine, etc, etc, for reasons, blame the lack of paper/pencil/laptop, cause none of that seem to be used in this film to create a very basic concept called the "SCRIPT."

Sincerely,

Vivek "gizmos, marketing, style, TASHAN...all very good, but when there ain't a product...there is nothing to sell and nobody to buy" Kumar

vivek@saafa.org