Tezz

What do you do when a country, a culture and their purveyors wrong you irreparably? You plant a bomb in a speeding train and hold the establishment to ransom.

Taking a cue from Hollywood's most watched bomb-maro-bomb rush-hour excursions into plunder-land, Tezz springs forward as nicely-packaged film.

Here we know Ajay Devgn is the closet terrorist. But since his fans won't like it, Devgn is, with due respect to Mira Nair, a reluctant terrorist, how reluctant, we won't reveal fully.

Devgn has a back story with screen wife Kangna Ranaut, who in keeping with her character's British domicile, sports blonde hair. No, this is not a joke.

Luckily, Priyadarshan's plot has a lot more going for itself than its leading lady's hair-to-stay problems. The director creates a game between 'terrorist' Devgn and cop Anil Kapoor who in true Hollywood style, is on the verge of retirement from service when duty beckons.

There are enough men on duty on both sides of the law here to fill up one section of Tihar jail. The narration allows elbow-room for an army of actors laden with anxious motivations and tense expressions to match, all hurling like the speeding train towards an uncertain nemesis. Luckily, the plot finds itself a convincing finale. And we can go home feeling all is not lost for the slick action genre in Bollywood. There is hope.

There are some jaw-dropping action sequences here. Some of them, like Devgn and Kapoor's fist-to-fist in the grand finale and the search for Devgn in a hospital's car park, are so expertly executed they make you forget how far Bollywood lags behind in the action genre from its firangi counterpart. But then again some of the stunts like the one where passengers from the bomb-threatened train climb into a safe train, are done clumsily.

Curiously, Zayed Khan and Sameera Reddy who play Devgn's accomplices in the terror crime are given one extended chase sequence, each. They show remarkable agility in their given space. Ditto the film's technicians. Thiru S. Appan's camera looks at London with keen anticipation.

"He's Indian, not Pakistani," Boman confidently informs cop Anil Kapoor with a straight face.

The absurdities don't swamp Tezz. True its title, the tale of a bomb and a Boman trying to diffuse the crisis, whizzes by at breakneck speed.

Priyadarshan tackles what's a new genre for him, with pleasure and aplomb. Ajay Devgn, Anil Kapoor, Boman Irani, Sameera Reddy and Zayed Khan furnish a flavour of slickness to a story that holds your attention till the end.

Not quite edge-of-the-seat, the thrills in Tezz are engaging enough to keep us watching.

Many words come to mind when describing this film. Implausible, contrived, dire, pointless.... but I digress. This is the film industry at it's worst. Trying to put two eminently attractive people in leading roles into a film whose plot has more holes than 100 golf courses.I mean, what was the point? I ought to sue - "I maintain that the producers and distribution company did willingly deprive me of two hours of my life which I could have more usefully spent inspecting my navel.

Ajay Devgan and Kangana Renaut may indeed be cute but they hardly rank highly in the acting stakes.Same goes with Boman Irani(who just played a joker in houseful 2).Anil Kapoor,however,tries to give his best and fails because of the weak plot.

May be Priyadarshan should stick to mindless comedies, so we can be sure we're in safe territory. You won't be missing much if you skipped Tezz,It is avoidable at all costs. Watch Speed and other Hollywood action movies instead.

Priyadarshan's love for making inspired (or copied) movies continues with TEZZ which can easily be included in the list of director's weakest movies till date. Revolving around the plot of a bomb placed in a high speed train, the film has very less of the train and more of all unexciting and directionless drama going on amongst many Indian and foreign characters vaguely. In fact the funniest part of the film lies in the manner all the western actors are talking in fluent Hindi which looks quite weird and illogical as per the concept and grandeur of the product is concerned. (May be they have a different version to be released overseas.)

The plot of TEZZ has no novelty and neither has its execution which looked quite promising in its promos. Indian viewers have already seen this before in a far better and entertaining movie called "The Burning Train" (1980) which was made more than 3 decades ago but still remains a much more enjoyable fast paced thriller than the current TEZZ. In the World Cinema there are more than one references of films made on similar subjects from where B. R. Chopra's 1980 film was also inspired. In 1975, there was"Shikansen Daibakuha" or "The Bullet Train" made in Japan (from which TEZZ copies many exact sequences) followed by "1 2 3 Monster Express" with a speeding bus made in Thailand in the year 1977. Before it there was "The Cassandra Crossing"which revolved around a disease spread in a speeding train, released in 1976. In 1985 it was "Runaway Train" having two escaped convicts trapped on a train with no brakes. In 1994 Keanu Reeves was there to stop a fast speeding bus with a bomb in "Speed"and most recently there was "Unstoppable" released in 2010 wherein Denzel Washington tries to stop a speeding train without a driver.

So after reading the above references the first question which comes to my mind is that what was the need of making this movie which had nothing new to tell or show the audience in the first place? The attempt would have been justified if it had some worth watching actions sequences or graphical representations converting the old plot into a worth watching one. But sadly the film has nothing to offer in that department too and is a totally uninteresting watch for particular the viewers who have seen at least one of the above mentioned movies in the past.

The screenplay is unexciting and so are the performances from the veterans as they are given nothing in the script to showcase their talents. The unwanted songs and deliberately added half baked love angles further ruin the project completely accompanied by a quite badly written and laughable climax (which cannot be revealed here). In short the film really makes you wonder that what really forced reputed actors such as Anil Kapoor, Ajay Devgan and Boman Irani sign this film after reading its script (assuming they were given one before signing it). Now I have not included Mohan Lal in the names above because I know he must have done this project purely due to his years long relations with the director, otherwise there was nothing for him to do in the entire film at all. The ladies are all there decorating few parallel running story tracks which could have been avoided easily. As a casting blunder it also has a girl posing as a child artist who at present is playing 'The Elder Bahu" in an ongoing serial on TV. Frankly speaking, what more can be written about a film called TEZZ which actually has very few exciting high voltage sequences involving 'The Real Train' and just keeps wandering in the places outside the train for most of the time.

Summing up, I would like to ask all the readers here that, What do you think has to be the most important aspect of a film titled TEZZ based on the plot of a speeding train with a bomb waiting to explode? Just try to give it a thought before reading further.

Yes, the script has to be there, the content needs to be there along with a great execution on the screen and yes the performances also have to be there to support the concept. But what's most important in an exciting chase thriller such as TEZZ is its"Background Score" which should make your heartbeat run faster and should be capable enough to bring the viewer on to the edge of his seats.

Unfortunately, TEZZ has one of the weakest Background Scores not complementing the actual theme of the project in any way. A racy soundtrack doesn't only mean increasing the BPM (Beats per minute) on the mixer. But it should have a great composition too which can make you feel the tension and danger being shown on the screen involving the lives of so many people.

So failing to meet this very first requisite of making a fast pace chase thriller involving a ticking bomb, for me TEZZ has no Tezzy (Speed) in it as per its name and its just like a years old wet cracker trying to explode loudly. And if you really want to know what I mean by the musical point mentioned here then do watch Denzel Washington's UNSTOPABBLE and see the difference what Background Music can cause to a project of this nature.

Look like 1 star raters hate Ajay Devgan thats why they give such rating. But its a good move with lots of fast moving scenes which are rare to see in other movies.

I like this I am seeing it after 10 years for the first time I appreciate all the actors and actress who have work in this movie and specially director priyadarshan I like this movie very much all those who have given negative reviews to this movie I think they have seen with one eye.