Did the car emote? Not really, the film’s cinematography wasn’t advanced and while I make no excuses for how bad some of the special effects looked, there’s no denying that this was a worthy trial. While audiences and movie-makers were insatiable in their cravings for masala flicks and love-angles even in horror/fantasy films, Abbas-Mustan were out there trying to make a car look sinister and human in it’s functioning. And in a decade that released films like Krishna Cottage and Raaz, this is what one might call, a radical departure from the norm. Female characters have long-suffered the burden of returning in terrible forms to fulfil their unfinished biddings in a world that has wronged them.
A revenge-hungry character, especially if its a ghost in fantasy films is usually a scorned woman. In a recent interview with Anvita Dutt, the director of Bulbbul, the conversation revolved around Bollywood’s tragic lack of originality with revenge arcs. And it took one ridiculous film for Bollywood to unleash its potential for revenge dramas.
#WWW TAARZAN THE WONDER CAR MOVIE#
The movie portrays a car driven (literally) by revenge. The car itself is central to understanding why Taarzan was ahead of its time. The film’s makers went above and beyond to guarantee originality. So yes, the attempt at an Indian adaptation was made. Taarzan is complete with a car puja scene because we're so desi and dialogues like " Yeh car nahi, bekaar hai" (don't ask me why I know that). Both Arnie and Raj take up jobs at the local car garage to fix the titular car. Raj is Arnie in this film, the college nerd crushing on the girl next door Priya (Ayesha Takia). His spirit then latches on the car and awaits vengeance of a similar kind. Deven, a car designer is cheated out of a deal by his colleagues who steal credit for his work and are responsible for his demise. The film localises most of the contents of the book by placing the car in three generations of the Choudhary family, something Deven (Ajay Devgn) was hoping to pass down to Raj (Vatsal Sheth). When the car is vandalised by highschool bully Buddy, the car seeks revenge. Now, Christine is a jealous killer car who takes hold of Arnie.
The story revolves around unpopular highschool kid Arnie, his best friend, girlfriend and a haunted 1958 Plymouth Fury named Christine. Stephen King's 'Christine' wasn't his most popular novel but it was certainly a creepy read. Based loosely on Stephen King’s 'Christine', the film was visionary at the very least. But if director duo Abbas-Mustan and writers Lalit and Sunny Mahajan are going to credit themselves with anything in relation with the film, it’s the inventiveness. The nostalgia doesn’t make the movie a better one, Ayesha Takia’s debut is still haunted by the ghost of the film’s release, Vatsal Sheth was placed in one too many cringe-worthy scenes and God help those visuals. Having said that, I’m guessing Taarzan: The Wonder Car has some nostalgic strings attached to it. And maybe, you can’t get Himesh Reshammiya’s music and the comically ominous ‘Taarzan’ theme song out of your mind.
If you have watched the film, you probably did so ironically or with people who seemed to enjoy their popcorn entertainment without bringing criticism and analysis to the theatres. Buckle up millennials, this is going to be a drive down memory lane. Looking back, I totally get why the film that launched Ayesha Takia was a flop but was it a complete failure? On the anniversary of Taarzan: The Wonder Car, I'm looking back at the film that could've been Bollywood's finer attempts at a revenge drama. Night Shyamalan’s The Village (in the same year, just to give you an idea of the range) so when The Wonder Car appeared with its weird purple hood driven by an unassuming Vatsal Sheth, I was intrigued, particularly by the concept of a possessed car. Having consumed the best of films pretty early into my childhood, I had already lapped up popular films like Back To The Future and more obscure hits like M. I couldn't either when I watched it on a vacation day and it was quite an experience. The Abbas and Mustan Burmawalla film's spectacle at the movies rivalled an actual car crash, it was terrible but you couldn't look away. It was also the year Taarzan: The Wonder Car released, accelerated through its ambitious 2h 42m run-time and crashed at the box office. 2004 was especially influential with films cementing the early cinematic tones of the decade. It was a strange time for Bollywood as the industry dabbled into everything between big family dramas with Indian diaspora in the States to cheesy college romances. Oh, the glorious early '00s, the decade of Dhoom, Main Hoon Na and RTDM.
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