Released just prior to year-end, Tees Maar Khan was supposed to become the biggest blockbuster of 2010 but instead turned out to be the dampest squib of the year. It is not hard to see why. Just after watching the first 15 minutes of the film, one starts to shake the head in disbelief. How could Farah Khan make such a cold turkey? In fact, how could anyone make such a shoddy film after spending crores on its making and promos? Yes, it is that bad.

A master conman (Akshay Kumar) is hired by a pair of villains (shown to be Siamese twins!) to arrange a heist of a police train carrying a massive load of priceless antiques. So he hatches a master-plan and starts a phoney film-shoot in a remote village situated along the rail-track. His great idea? To make a reigning superstar (Akshaye Khanna) and all the village-folk (engaged as film-extras) believe that they are looting the train as a scene from the film-shoot!  His dim-witted filmy mother; even more dim-witted B-grade actress girl-friend (Katrina Kaif) and his three moronic friends also are participating in this great venture.

Filled with rotten unfunny dialogue, horrible overacting and a series of failed gags Tees Maar Khan grates on the nerves and tells you why making a good Masala movie is so difficult. Farah Khan, who was spot-on in concocting some over-the-top but enjoyable entertainers like Main Hoon Na and Om Shanti Om, fails miserably to repeat the trick.

The story-line in such films is not supposed to matter but it is at least supposed to throw up engaging, entertaining sequences at regular intervals to keep the audience interested in the proceedings. But the film loses the track almost from the beginning. Farah’s pet theme of spoofing the 70s and 80s Masala movies seems to have played out and there is a strong sense of staleness to the entire effort.

Akshay Kumar, the next big thing to Khans and Roshan, suffers a total meltdown.  He is lethargic and can’t raise a laugh. Katrina just proves once more that acting is not her cup f tea. Akshaye Khanna can take solace from the fact that he delivers the only performance, which could be called remotely funny here.  If the main cast is wooden, then the supporting cast is even worse. The film’s greatest ticket to fame was Katrina’s hot item number Sheila Ki Jawani . But after already having watched that track umpteen number of times on all the TV channels, when we view it in the film, even that ‘hot’ number suffers heavy heat-loss!

Farah Khan has made a fortune by taking potshots at various films and filmi personalities in her two previous hits but her attempted digs fail to strike pay-dirt this time around. It was supposed to be her answer to the industry-jibe that she wouldn’t deliver a hit without Shahrukh at her side. The boastful King Khan must be thanking his good stars that he wriggled out of this one. He may be the only one who would have laughed after watching this film- particularly at the lame attempts to poke fun at him and his earlier work with the choreographer-turned-director!

The joke is on Farah this time. Someone should have told her – ‘Sheeshe ke ghar mein rahnewale, basement mein jaake kapde badalte  hain’!