An American scientist is called Bernie Sanders. A Chinese terrorist is named General Woo. Your brain at the end of Ruslaan will be called Bheja Fry.

A messy and mindless mish-mash of every done-to-death Bollywood stereotype sums up this Friday release. Mounted as an ’80s-styled masala film but aspirational enough to include new-age gadgetry, a geopolitical angle and self-styled secret agents perpetually moving in slow-motion, Ruslaan is the kind of film that you had hoped Bollywood had left behind. Unfortunately not.

Ruslaan’s sole function is to serve as a showcase for its leading man. Aayush Sharma, sporting a tree-house structured gravity-defying hairstyle even in the most trying circumstances, moves between action, emotion, drama, comedy, song ’n’ dance. He manages to leave no impact in any department. As a last-ditch attempt, the actor even tries taking off his shirt at the drop of a button. But Aayush is no Salman Khan, of course. If Salman, who happens to be Aayush’s brother-in-law, ripping off his shirt — CGI-generated abs or not — still invites catcalls and ceetees, Aayush’s attempt — including a protracted shirtless action scene against the backdrop of the mountains of Azerbaijan — draws nothing but yawns and eye rolls.

The kind of film that mistakes repeated slow-motion shots for novel technique and a grating background score as a tension-building tactic, Ruslaan wants to be edgy and new-age but all it does is rehash every trope in the Bollywood book.

The film starts off with a house full of terrorists being ambushed by cops. The sole survivor is a young boy named Ruslaan who, in a Mission Kashmir-styled plot point, gets adopted by the policeman (played by Jagapathi Babu with a perpetually pained expression) who gunned down his parents. The cute, chubby kid quickly grows into an emaciated Aayush, whose day job involves being a music teacher in a college (a Mohabbatein nod without the blue sweater and, of course, Shah Rukh Khan’s magic) who jams like a rock star in the annual fest. But how can a hero be a mere music teacher? Ruslaan moonlights as an agent for the country’s intelligence agency but his inability to conform to rules often finds him landing in trouble.

The M to Ruslaan’s 007 is Chak De! India girl Vidya Malvade dressed in power suits of every colour on the Asian Paints brochure. His love interest is fellow agent Vaani, played by Sushrii Mishra, who gives Aayush strong competition in the deadpan department.

Ruslaan, living with the tag of being a terrorist’s son, finds himself framed for murder. Despite the country’s cops on his heels, Ruslaan easily walks in and out of public spaces and even jets off to a foreign land. The budget of the film is limited to Baku and it makes the most of it — slo-mo shots are doubled, Aayush starts taking off his shirt more, Sushrii takes the opportunity to deliver a couple of vacuous expressions, a few car chases take place and a song is, of course, tucked in.

Giving Pakistan a break, China is the enemy here. General Woo, who looks like someone who could be a cook in Chinatown, tortures his enemies while sipping on wine. He then uses the wine opener to rip them apart. Even then, it comes second to the kind of torture this film inflicts on the audience.

Take a couple of winks in between and you will wake up to someone threatening to blow up Mumbai’s gas pipeline in what is described as a plan “worse than the Bhopal gas tragedy”. Of course, Ruslaan is the only man who can avert it. Even though he is on the most-wanted list, Ruslaan jets back to India with ease and walks into a building with a fluorescent orange sign that says ‘Mumbai Gas Line’. The film limps towards a predictable climax and suddenly throws in a twist so contrived that it makes Abbas-Mustan look like Alfred Hitchcock.

Ruslaan ends with the promise of a sequel with a new M — ala Ralph Fiennes, but with Suniel Shetty sporting a mundu — stepping in. What more can we say? As the film repeatedly warns: ‘Do not engage!’