When big guns delivered colossal duds!

Given that ‘Padmavati’ is stalled and the trailer of ‘Tiger Zinda Hai’ does not really appear very interesting, we can safely conclude that barring some sincere pleasant surprise efforts, 2017 was a year when Bollywood largely disappointed us. There have been disappointments always in Bollywood’s history of hyped films but 2017 probably was the first year after the video piracy days of the 1980s and the cable TV boom around 1991, that so many celebrated makers and superstars together failed us. Probably in one of the starkest reminders to Bollywood’s self-obsessed giants ‘Baahubali 2’ made money, which is equal to probably what our three biggest hits made in Hindi cinema. Here is the gloom list of 2017 and let us hope that 2018 will make up for this.

OK Jaanu – Mani Ratnam had claimed his throne again down south as the king of “realistic romance” with the Tamil original version of ‘OK Jaanu’. The chemistry between the lead pair was as hot as a soup bowl left open all night in the Himalayas. This one also started the obsession with remixes, the cold-blooded techno butchery of “Humma Humma” only contributed to its bloodbath at the box office.

Raees – This one had a total “me too a gangster film” written all over it. Had its makers not managed a huge number of screens at the cost of the more watchable Kaabil it’s BO numbers would have been not so Raees. Deep down even the staunchest SRK fan will tell you they expected better from the Baadshah. ‘Raees’, in fact, looked like a pale obsessed version of the Milan Lutharia classic called ‘Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai’ – it neither had the dialogues nor the thrill.

Rangoon – Vishal Bharadwaj is not known to make 150 crore plus movies but to his fans including yours truly barring the very forgettable ‘Saat Khoon Maaf’, all his movies had solid entertainment value. VB is one true prince of darkness. Then came this 154-minute long torture, which was more like ‘Maine Pyaar Kiya’ meets realistic cinema minus the screenplay. The freshness of this movie could be gauged by the fact that Saif Ali Khan was again playing the third angle in a love triangle.

After watching this one you would be genuinely confused if you should have felt sorry for yourself or for Viacom, which pumped a whopping 80 crore in this sorry joke of a movie. Begum Jaan – Had ‘Tumhari Sulu’ not come to her rescue ‘Begum Jaan’ had ensured Vidya Balan’s career obituary to be written by enthusiastic film writers. ‘Begum Jaan’ came with hype and you can understand the quality of the film if the surprise packet actually turned out to be Chunky Pandey, with due respect to the dude do I need write more?

Noor – Frankly if this is Sonakshi Sinha’s idea of intellectual cinema then may I suggest she immediately signs up for ‘Rowdy Rathore 2’ and ‘R Rajkumar 2’ please? At least she looks so bloody ravishing and proper bombshell babe in those movies. They told us this one was based on a Pakistani bestseller, my respect for Pakistani writers has gone down a few kilometres post ‘Noor’.
Sarkar 3 – Either Amitabh Bachchan is a very large-hearted man or Ram Gopal Varma offered him a signing amount, which was worth 10 movies’ fees of Big B.

In its entire 131 minutes, you only wanted to ask Big B did he actually read the screenplay when he signed this. Raabta – If I were to tell you that this movie got more mentions on social media because of the KRK and Kriti Sanon controversy post the bombing of this movie you can well imagine the content of this ‘Karz’ mixed with ‘Magadheera’ movie. The difference was the makers forgot ‘Magadheera’ had India’s biggest storyteller SS Rajamouli calling the shots. I am still wanting to pay my respects to the brave hearts who invested 30 crores in this stench.

Jab Harry Met Sejal – Someone needs to tell Imtiaz Ali that he is not even one-tenth as good in the eyes of the average audience that the Mumbai intellectual media tells him. His only BO hit remains ‘Jab We Met’. SRK in a famous post-release press conference blamed it on audience preconceived notions while the actual villain was ‘JHMS’ boring content. ‘JHMS’ was hailed as an intelligent cinema only the audience find nothing new in plot points like heroine falling for the hero because he saves her from goondas in Europe and rightly so!

By: Rahul Deo Bharadwaj