Special: Wanted

Wanted, directed by ace choreographer Prabhu Deva who also made the Tamil version of the film, is a senseless, noisy, gratuitously violent movie - the kind that you thought you had left behind in the 1980s. Salman Khan plays Radhey, a super-cool tapori who is described by his friends as "Rocky ka baap, Terminator ka nana, the last action hero".

Our hero shoots, stabs and crunches bones for a living. He works for various gangs. Of course this isn’t quite what it seems and we have an end twist that justifies his violence. I couldn’t keep track of the many villains but they are all, without fail, seriously unattractive, loud and dumb.

One bad guy, who likes silky suits, screams: "Main international don hoon, don". Another draws his nefarious plans on a blackboard with chalk.

The mind-numbing violence that these men engineer is interspersed with Radhey’s love story with a call center employee, played by Ayesha Takia, who is either doing aerobics or being mauled by men.

Women are routinely brutalized in Wanted. At one point, the villain directs his men to gang rape the police commissioner’s daughter, saying that he must hear her screams. The men don’t do much better. Most end up broken or dead.

Wanted is what film trade pundits routinely describe as a movie for the masses. But I’m not sure who will find this tedious parade of dialogue-baazi and blood entertaining.

Yes, there is plenty here for action buffs, including a ripped, shirtless Salman going on a killing spree in the climax. The rest of us should just steer clear.