Feroz Khan makes a stunning return to the screen in what has to be, without the doubt, the biggest turkey of the year. So overcome by his off screen image of an ageing lothario, with some bright young babe hanging on his arm, Feroz decides to translate this yet again onto our screens in the guise of Janasheen, a hideous mix of all his previous efforts thrown together and made into a ghoulash of sorts which is more ghoulish than ghoulash!

JANASHEEN opens with the age old angelic kiddies “falling in love”, being all of 6 years old! Lucky is packed off to Australia by the father with his mother in tow because she is suffering from cancer although she does not know this. So one wonders how on earth she is to get treatment there !!! In any event, it transpires that hubby never makes it to Australia and wifey dies leaving son in the hands of her sister “Aunty Martha” (Archana Puran Singh). Clearly, if she had not known of her condition and Hubby dear had not showed up, she was bound to kick the bucket! Hence, Lucky [Fardeen Khan] grows up in Australia, a keen motorbike racer. Father and son are estranged supposedly because he abandoned his wife in favour of making money in India.

Father has brought up Jessica (Celina Jaitley), his neighbour’s daughter who has blurred vision and sings with her violin as a pop singer in his night club Angaara. Her brother Max is the DJ there, out of jail after he murdered his abusive alcoholic father, who had smashed his daughter’s head on a mirror thereby causing her blurred vision!!!! We also have the Tina, who looks like something out of “Mad Max” who gyrates to the songs that our sweet bleary eyed Jessica pounds out at the club. Jessica of course still pines for Lucky.
In this melee enters Sabah Karim (Feroz Khan), a bald ageing Afghani businessman with earrings and a pet tiger as appendages, set upon acquiring Angaara which lucky’s father refuses to sell as if it is a family heirloom. So Saba Karim has Lucky’s father murdered witnessed by Max and Tina taking pictures and also by our bleary eyed lass who happens to be crouching in the back seat unknown to the murderer who happens to be in the back seat as well! Passed off as an accident, Lucky returns to India where he meets Jessica again, having set eyes on her once before in Australia which prompted him to break out in a ditty in a flower shop with some Filipino attendant looking on with glee. However, Jessica reveals nothing to him, threatened as she has been that Lucky will also be done away with if she says anything to him.

Meanwhile, we have another strand to the story. Saba Karim has taken to Lucky in a big way and it transpires that Lucky is a humshakal of his dead son who was killed in Afghanistan. For some unfathomable reason, Lucky is also attracted to Saba Karim who becomes a foster father to him. Saba Karim does not know at this stage that he has murdered Lucky’s father.

If this convoluted mix of characters and minimal story is enough to make your head spin, much more follows with sub plots and endless songs culminating in a dreary climax which finally brings the proceedings to a close….or so you think. The monkey has the final word and you begin to realise that this is the best joke in the film…Feroz Khan making a monkey of his audience!

No two ways about it, Janasheen is an atrocious film, going no where and you wonder why it was made at all. Feroz Khan seems to be living in past glories and this film is closest to Apradh, his 70s film with Mumtaz where he showed his heroine in hotpants and embellished the film with a modern feel showing sequences of motor racing and skimpily clad women. Nothing has changed since then. Today we have our heroine jumping out of the water in a bikini playing the violin or then trying to recreate Sridevi’s moves in Jaanbaaz in a song set against blustery wind, gyrating her body and her sari in the same way. Motorbike racing takes over from motor racing but lacks the same excitement. Any excuse to show women in as skimpy attire as possible at every possible moment and you realise that Feroz Khan lives in a world of his own. For some, this is all glitter but where is the story? There is none to speak of and the film simply meanders on from one incredible situation to another. When you have masks being pealed off the faces of others impersonating others, you realise that the story writer (Feroz) doesn’t really have a clue! Feroz Khan believes that all that is required is a skin show, great locations and songs that pop in and out of the film for no discernible reason and that too, rather ordinary songs at that.

As for performances, Feroz Khan’s character is simply hilarious. Can anyone really take it seriously especially with his pet Sheru the tiger being his constant companion. Methinks that he finally gets his comeuppance in the end because he was abandoning his pet in taking off for Afghanistan. Things would have looked better had he reserved a seat for Sheru on his helicopter. Fardeen Khan has never been worse and after a hiatus of sorts, with a spate of awful movies, this one will do nothing for his career. We see more of Fardeen in skimpy briefs, or gyrating to dreadful songs than anything resembling a performance. Its one of those that makes you cringe and wonder what the future may hold for him if this is the best he can do. Celina Jaitley hits a lucky streak as her atrocious acting simply blends in so well with the film that she actually seems to gel in well with the disaster that unfolds before the audience!

The music is tedious with one or two songs holding some allure but not any that will be remembered in days to come. Surprisingly, although shot in Australia, you do not get a feeling of freshness…we have the same graveyard as seen as a backdrop in Tanhaaeee in Dil Chahta hai and various beaches for songs…there is no actions sequences that are interesting or exciting. All in all, Janasheen falls well short of expectations on ever count. Its so dreadful, it had me glued to my seat, waiting with bated breath to see how much worse it could get. On that level, it did not disappoint.