Synopsis :
Loosely based on CHRISTINE, TAARZAN THE WONDER CAR falls in the same mould as a revenge film. Except, of course, the revenge seeker in TAARZAN THE WONDER CAR is not a man, but a machine [car].

The car does just about everything that a Hindi film hero would do, including punishing the evil-doers. Frankly, the efforts that have gone into the making of TAARZAN THE WONDER CAR need to be lauded. At least someone has had the guts to swim against the tide and offer a genuinely hatke fare!

However, making the car behave like a human and adding the track of an aatma to the storyline may just look implausible to a section of hardcore Indian moviegoers.

Raj [Vatsal Sheth] is the son of a car designer, Devesh [Ajay Devgan]. Devesh designs a swanky car, much ahead of its times, and goes to a company to fix a deal.

However, the four partners of the company [Pankaj Dheer, Sadashiv Amrapurkar, Shakti Kapoor and Mukesh Tiwari] disagree on certain terms and abort the deal. But without the knowledge of Devesh, they copy the design of the car and register it in their name.

When Devesh threatens to move court, the evil four, with the help of a corrupt police officer, kill him and along with his car, throw him in a lake. Devesh’s family thinks that he has died in an accident.

Kartar Singh [Amrish Puri] owns a garage where Raj works. Raj finds a car in a junkyard and takes it upon himself to transform it into a macho machine. How the wonder car takes the villains to task, eliminating them one by one, forms the crux of the film.

A storyline like the one in TAARZAN THE WONDER CAR hasn’t been witnessed before. Hindi moviegoers have so far witnessed icchadhari snakes [NAGIN]/animals [dogs, elephants, cows] or ghosts seeking revenge [Ramsay films, BHOOT], but a car taking evil-doers to task is indeed a novel experience.

If the novel premise of the film is its USP [since a theme like this hasn’t been witnessed before], the very plot is also a downer. For, the car in TAARZAN THE WONDER CAR behaves like a super-hero. It repairs itself, it fights, it reacts, it survives calamities… exactly like a Bollywood hero. Now this aspect may seem far-fetched to those who choose not to believe in such cinema.

Another factor that stands out is the car, designed by famed automobile designer Dilip Chhabria, and the thrills that have been executed by action directors Kaushal-Moses. In a revenge saga, where the car does all the killing, you’d expect mutilated bodies, blood and gore. But TAARZAN THE WONDER CAR is devoid of all that. The thrills in the film, mainly the one in the climax as also those involving Mukesh Tiwari [before intermission], are amongst the high points of the enterprise. Kaushal-Moses deserve full marks for making the most of the opportunity and handling the thrills with dexterity.

Himesh Reshammiya’s music is pleasant. The title track as well as ‘O Sajan’ and ‘Ooh La La’ stand out. Cinematography is of standard.

On the whole, TAARZAN THE WONDER CAR is a different experience that will find its share of supporters and adversaries.