Directed by: Priyadarshan
Produced by: Ratan Jain
Screenplay by: Robin Bhatt
Starring: Ajay Devgn, Anil Kapoor, Zayed Khan, Boman Irani, Kangana Ranaut, Sameera Reddy, Mohanlal (Cameo)
Rating: *1/2
Priyadarshan’s Tezz is a copy of Jan De Bont’s ‘Speed’ starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. We should have guessed that from the title. Here, instead of a bus, there is a train and some scenes are identical. Since it is a Hindi movie, there is an “emotional” angle to it.
Image: Tezz Movie Theatrical Release Poster | Courtesy: Venus.
Ajay Devgan is an illegal immigrant who marries British citizen Kangana Ranaut. He is an engineer and runs his own firm. Zayed Khan and Sameera Reddy are illegal immigrants who work for him. The immigration department shuts his business down and deports him, separating him from Kangana. He returns for revenge and decides to plant a bomb in a train in London. He gets in touch with railway traffic controller Boman Irani to negotiate. Anil Kapoor plays a Counter Terrorism Command detective who joins the team to track down the team. Will the train blow up?
Zayed Khan looks perpetually alert and stunned, like someone has put a gun to his head. It takes him a lot of effort to act. His character is quite a cliché! Sameera Reddy is convincing in the action scenes and she doesn’t have too many other scenes. Anil Kapoor looks impressively fit but something is off with his accent. Some of his scenes are good but the others could have been handled better. The Parkour scenes between Zayed and Anil look digitally altered. Boman Irani is pitch-perfect as the railway traffic controller and Ajay Devgan’s performance as the desperate lead of the film is sincere. Yet, you don’t feel sympathy for his character. Kangana Ranaut is wasted and does nothing new but it is hard to miss her fashionable clothes.
The movie doesn’t have much pace and goes haywire in the second half. An action movie should remain an action movie and there is no need to make it emotional. That attempt fails because you don’t even sympathize with the characters and the premise for planting a bomb on a train is not convincing enough. Some of the action sequences are longer than necessary. The dialogues are predictable and lame. You wonder how the bombs get past security! There is the usual Indo-British rivalry and condescension. You don’t care much for the characters and by the end you couldn’t be less bothered. It is quite forgettable. It is a good thing that there are no songs. Some scenes, the train changing lines for instance, are meant to get you to the edge of your seat but that doesn’t happen. The train speed limit, the passenger exchange, and the “money going down the drain” are straight from Speed. What is the need to remake that movie after 18 years!
Tezz is avoidable at all costs. Watch Speed and other Hollywood action movies instead! I am going with 1.5 out of five stars.
