The flip side by Freudian Slip! Be a Bollywood blog-ibutor on MissMalini.com

My least anticipated film of the year:

Thank You. The combination of Anees Bazmee and Akshay Kumar is enough to strike terror into the hearts of any cinema-goer with an iota of good taste. Don’t get me wrong- I’m not a snob. I enjoy well-made masala potboilers as much as the next person and Main Hoon Na is a personal favorite. But there is a difference between mindless cinema and tasteless cinema, and clearly neither Anees nor Akshay know of this.

Anees’s filmography reads like the low points of contemporary Bollywood. Take for instance, No Problem: the film’s central plot apparently hinged around a Gorilla farting. And then there’s the worrying fact that he seems to think extramarital affairs  are not morally wrong, but instead material for ‘comedies’. (Affairs only for men, obviously. Anees will fill his movie with near-naked women for no reason, but god forbid he shows an Indian wife cheating.)

Thank You will be one such ‘extra-marital comedy’. Which also explains why it was ‘necessary’ to include dance steps where Akshay Kumar and Irrfan Khan spanked white extras. (You think that the world is incapable of such tastelessness, gentle reader? That this is some random rumour? Unfortunately not. Anees Bazmee himself was quoted saying this in a TOI article hilariously titled “Bobby Deol refuses to spank buttocks”. The article also informs us that Anees laughed at Bobby for his refusal to spank buttocks).

And then there is the lead actor: Akshay Kumar. Apart from having been our highest paid actor until recently, (he charges rupees 27 crores per film) Akshay’s greatest achievement is being our prime candidate for Political Incorectness and Perversion in Popular Cinema. If Anees’s filmography is bad, Akshay’s is a disgrace. From slapping his girlfriend and harassing her until she wants to commit suicide in Khatta Meetha to starring in the hideously racist Kambhakht Ishq to making pointed gay jokes onscreen, Akshay has done it all. It says a lot of about the worrying state of our cinema that he is so successful, given his career choices.

Even given the merging of these two dubious talents, the first look of Thank You shocks you with its crudeness. Surely Sonam Kapoor who portrays herself to be the epitome of good taste, should have known better? Surely Irrfan doesn’t need to degrade himself like this when he is about to act in an Ang Lee film? Surely the censor board cannot approve of such distasteful trash?

Anyway, beggaring all belief, Thank You is soon releasing in a theatre near you. To paraphrase my favorite Indian critic Rajeev Masand – If you voluntarily watch this movie, I will pay for your psychiatric bills.