Tuesday 31 December 2013

7 Biggest Disappointing Bollywood Films of 2013

1. Himmatwala


Release date - 29'th March 2013

Story and DirectionSajid Khan

Budget- 60 crores
Net Collections - 47.43 crores


Story- School master Dharam Murti witnesses a murder of a man at the hands of Sher Singh Bandookwala. But Sher Singh with his might, terror and money sets free. In revenge he places Dharam Murti in an awkward position with a lady teacher, Menaka. Dharam Murti ashamed of this vacates his village and abandons his wife & children. His wife Savitri helps her son Ravi (Ajay Devgn) become an engineer who then resolves to fight against Bandookwala and get his father's spoilt reputation back. ...


Before the film's release Sajid Khan said in an interview ," All my films have been blockbusters and I will continue making such films." He guaranteed that his remake of 'Himmatwala' will run full house and people will not get tickets for the first three days.


The movie turned out to be so bad that after the first three days the audience stayed away from it and the film could even not recover its cost.

2. Zanjeer 

Release Date - 6'th September 2013 

Story , Screenplay and Direction -Apoorva Lakhia
Budget-60 crores
Net Collection - 14.5 crores

Story : The official remake of Amitabh Bachchan's 1973 hit Zanjeer. Vijay is a brutally honest police officer who has been transferred yet again by the system for chasing the corrupt underworld goons. He is in charge of a case where the key eye witness, Mala, has seen a murder by Teja’s Gang and refuses to co-operate. 
The film revolves around Vijay’s struggle against the system, his battle against his inner demons and the chase after Teja.

The remarkable thing about Prakash Mehra's 1973 original was its underplayed angst, the silent anger Mr. Bachchan expressed through his eyes which even got him the  'Angry Young Man ' tag . Lakhia's version goes over the top with dumb and noisy action copied from South Indian films.
The poor screenplay and the weak performances made it the biggest flop of the year.





3. Besharam

Release date -2'nd October 2013

Story and Direction- Abhinav Kashyap
Budget - 55 crores
Net Collections - 54 Crores
Story- Babli is a street smart car mechanic and car thief living in a Delhi orphanage. He is charming and lives life to the fullest. He has no sense of right or wrong till he unwittingly hurts the love of his life, Tara . Babli realizes that there is no right way of doing the wrong thing and sets out to fix all the wrongs in his life .

Abhinav Kashyap who made his directorial debut in 2010 through Dabangg has totally antagonized the audience with his second film .The full blame for this nonsense in the name of action/romance /comedy lies on his shoulder as not only he wrote the story he also wasted talented actors like Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Singh in roles where they had nothing to do. Ranbeer Kapoor, who is the current heart throb is made to wear cheap clothes ,use lame lines and act like a buffoon in most of the film


Poorly written screenplay and dialogues, too many songs and dances, weak characters and a lead pair who share zero chemistry were the main reasons the film's collections heavily dropped from a 22 crores opening  to just 7 crores on the second day.  


4. Once Upon a time in Mumbai Dobara
Release date - 15'th August 2013

DirectorMilan Luthria


WriterRajat Arora
Budget- 95 crores 
Nett Collections - 56.25 crores

Story- The film is a sequel of the hit film Once upon a time in Mumbai. After the death of Sultan it shows  Shohaib as the new king of Mumbai. Aslam is his protege and treats him like God. Shohaib meets Jasmine and is mesmerised by her beauty and wants to get her at any cost. This creates a rift between Shoaib and Aslam and results in the ultimate showdown between the mentor and protege.

The prequel was a big hit because of the fast story, memorable dialogues ,melodious songs and excellent acting by Ajay Devgan and Emran Hashmi.Akshay Kumar and Imran Khan totally failed to recreate the 1980's magic and the film was shunned by both critics and audience. After giving hit films one after another this film proved to be a big loss making proposition for Balaji Films. 

5. Ghanchakkar

Release Date- 27'th June 2013

Screenplay and Direction- Rajkumar Gupta
Budget- 30 crores
Net Collections - 29.65 crores
Story- When Sanjay , a suave, master safe cracker wants to retire from a career in crime, he decides to team up with two dangerous criminals to commit one last heist. A bank robbery that will ensure that he never has to worry about money again. Everything goes according to plan – in the wee hours of the morning, a bank vault is broken into and emptied of its contents of 350 million rupees. Sanjay is given the task of hiding the money till things cool down. Two months later Sanjay’s associates return to collect their share of the loot, but to their horror discover that Sanjay has lost his memory in an accident.

Rajkumar Gupta who has directed and also written  memorable films like Aamir (2008) and No One Killed Jessica (2011) totally fails to hold the audience interest. After interval most of us had given up on guessing and were hoping for some good suspense but the way the film ended was it's weakest point and the main reason for the negative word of mouth . 


6. Bullett Raja

Release date -29'th November 2013

Director - Tigmanshu Dhulia

Budget- 50 crores
Net Collections - 36.25 crores
Story- The movie is set against the backdrop of Uttar Pradesh-based mafia while dealing with the connection between underworld ,politicians and businessmen.

The strength of Dhulia's films have been their intense characters and the well researched scripts. Here the story deals with two jobless graduates who get trapped in a crime saga, and end up becoming right hand.of a  powerful politician.

The story and screenplay were so bad that it was difficult to believe that it came from a director who has given us master pieces like Shagird (2011) ,Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster (2011) , Paan Singh Tomar (2012) and Saheb, Biwi Aur Gangster Returns (2013)


7. Gori tere pyar main

Release date -22'nd November 2013

Director- Punit Malhotra
Budget- 50 Crores
Net Collections - 16.27 crores
Story- Dia , a social worker living in Bengaluru  meets a rich and spoilt Tamilian architect Sriram and they fall in love. He's lazy and shows little humanitarian inkling. She's a fiery, righteous rebel,  who fights for everything 'unfair'.  Because of the difference in their ideologies  they split up and move on. He moves on to Vasudha , the pretty matrimonial pick, while Dia heads to a remote village in Gujarat.

The film lacked originality and there were few entertaining moments. The lead pair had no chemistry and after interval the film just dragged on and on.
 Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Ramleela which released on the same day attracted all the audience because of which the film could not even manage a decent opening.
Kareena  Kapoor was the first choice of director Sanjay Leela Bhansali for the film ‘Ram-Leela’
In an interview Kareena said, "I confess that I'm mad. There have been times when I've signed a film and then felt it was wrong. Yes, I was supposed to do 'Ram-Leela' but I changed my mind. I decided to do Gori tere pyar main .With  me, it's all about the mood.'
Guess after watching Gori Tere Pyar Main we all think she's mad for choosing this film over Ramleela.
(Source- Box Office India)

Saturday 28 December 2013

Bullett Raja ,Good example of Commercialism killing Creativity

Release date – 29'th November 2013
One Word which describes the film – Disappointing 


Best Dialogue

1. 'Brahman bhukha to Sudama , samjha to Chanakya aur rootha to Raavan.'

2. ' Hamare yahan badla lene ki parampara hai koi corporate culture nahi jo agle deal me nuksaan adjust kar lein'

Genre – Action

Music – Sajid-Wajid

Producer- Rahul Mittra , Nitin Tej Ahuja ,
Tigmanshu Dhulia


Budget- 50 crores plus P&A

Bullett Raja which was made on almost three times the budget of his earlier films neither impressed the audience nor made money at the box office. The story and screenplay were so bad that it was difficult to believe that it came from a director who has given us master pieces like Shagird (2011) ,Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster (2011) , Paan Singh Tomar (2012) and Saheb, Biwi Aur Gangster Returns (2013)

The strength of Dhulia's films have been their intense characters and the well researched scripts. Here the story deals with two jobless graduates who get trapped in a crime saga, and end up becoming right hand.of a  powerful politician. We keep wondering how the two guys with no criminal background are experts at shooting and kept killing people in cold blood.

To justify the big budget the director added a very senseless item number by Mahi Gill. Songs like Tamnache pe disco kept coming in between which made the film more sluggish. 
Sonakshi Sinha's character came out of the blue just to provide a love interest for the main lead. 
There was a character who operates all kinds of business from jail and is shown as the one who controls all the election funds. 
The director must have been dissatisfied by the action as after interval a new character played by Vidyut Jamwal was introduced. 

The film just managed to make 36 crores in India and worldwide collections were 42 crores which were even less than the budget thus turning to be a big loss making proposition for Fox Star.

In a line the director has tried to add so much masala to the film that somewhere the focus on the story was totally lost.

Rank- 27 (out of the 54 films I have seen in 2014 )

Sunday 22 December 2013

Review of Dhoom 3

Release date – 20'th December 2013

One Word which describes the film – One- Man show


Best Dialogue  – 'Maskhare ka khel dhoke ka khel hota hai, jis main audience ko lagta hai ki jeet unki ho rahi hai..lekin jeette hum hai, hamesha. '



Genre – Action/Thriller/Drama

Music – Pritam

Producer- Aditya Chopra

Budget- 100 crores (approximately)


Dhoom 3 is the last big release of 2013. The earlier two films of the series were heist films where the thieves meticulously made plans of big robberies and played a cat and mouse game with the police.
Here director Vijay Krishna Acharya ( who made his directorial debut with Tashan ) writes a story taking inspiration from  My Name Is Khan and The Prestige which focuses on injustice and revenge. There are scenes where we wonder how this extremely unintentionally hilarious idea may have crossed the writer /director's mind.
We bear the long chase scenes and impossible action stunts and still are not bored by the end just because of one person commonly known as Mr. Perfectionist, Amir Khan.

He has worked hard for the film which reflects in his perfectly toned and muscular body , his dance performances and even the magic acts. He adds his soul to every dialogue and manages to make a really  weak script look good. For his hard work he is properly rewarded in the film as he occupies almost 70% of the screen space , has all the good dialogues and get even more chances than Katrina to show off his body.
    
Dhoom 3, the first film to release in IMAX format,  is released in 4470 screens in India and 820 screens overseas making it the biggest release till now. It has collected almost 100 crores in just 3 days and will break more records in the coming days.

In a line Amir Khan who plays a magician in Dhoom 3 has magically converted a heist film into an emotional saga and with his powerful acting manages to keeps the audience rooted to their seats till the end .

Good one time theater watch.  

Rank - 3 (out of the 54 films I have seen in 2013)