Rajesh A Krishnan’s heist comedy ‘Crew’, starring Tabu, Kareena Kapoor Khan and Kriti Sanon, is an efficient occasion of a profitable movie headlined by feminine stars. (Picture: PTI/File)
Bollywood has put up a great present with an excellent mixture of movies because the begin of the yr. What’s lacking is the all-time blockbuster
Two Bollywood biggies of various genres hit the marquee just lately. Ali Abbas Zafar’s sci-fi motion thriller Bade Miyan Chote Miyan, starring Akshay Kumar and Tiger Shroff as court-martialled troopers who reunite for a mission is one in every of them. The opposite is Amit Ravindernath Sharma’s biographical sports activities drama Maidaan starring Ajay Devgan as Syed Abdul Rahim, a soccer coach who grew to become an iconic determine in Indian sporting historical past. It’s potential to argue that the conflict might have been prevented for the sake of higher business outcomes for each movies, though Maidaan’s paid previews reached a restricted variety of viewers a day earlier. Neither BMCM nor Maidaan has excelled on the field workplace, and a turnaround appears extremely unlikely. Nonetheless, their launch is a reminder that Bollywood has been providing quite a lot of movies because the begin of the yr.
Maidaan’s lack of success received’t change the truth that Ajay Devgn continues to be a dependable star. An excellent consequence for BMCM, nonetheless, would have helped Akshay Kumar and Tiger Shroff, who want an enormous hit or two quickly. One other disappointment of 2024 is Siddharth Anand’s aerial motion drama Fighter, a big-budget Hrithik Roshan movie that didn’t ship the type of massive returns the business had anticipated. Fighter’s incapacity to turn into a big success was a shock, partly as a result of most critics favored the movie. Roshan’s followers shared their disappointment on social media, too, and others had been fast to level out that Fighter had didn’t emulate the magic of Pathaan, one other Anand movie starring Shah Rukh Khan, whose spectacular success grew to become the primary nice story of 2023.
Though Bollywood hasn’t given a big-budget blockbuster this yr, the business has succeeded in giving a great mixture of movies to the viewer. Some have been mediocre and even worse, but it’s heartening to see the sheer vary of movies the common filmgoer has both chosen to look at – or rejected. Among the many small and mid-size movies which have been theatrically launched thus far, just a few have managed to draw audiences in good numbers.
Bollywood has a protracted historical past of profitable horror movies. The newest addition to the record is Vikas Bahl’s supernatural horror movie Shaitaan, a modestly budgeted movie additionally starring Devgn together with R Madhavan that has emerged as a hit. Rajesh A Krishnan’s heist comedy Crew, starring Tabu, Kareena Kapoor Khan and Kriti Sanon, is an efficient occasion of a profitable movie headlined by feminine stars. Amit Joshi and Aradhana Sah’s sci-fi comedy Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya starring Shahid Kapoor and Sanon has labored, too, primarily as a result of the movie’s theme and the lead pair’s chemistry appealed to audiences.
One movie attracted eyeballs due to the selection of topic: Aditya Suhas Jambhale’s well-paced political thriller Article 370. Revolving round occasions that led to the abrogation of the controversial Article 370 that accorded particular standing to Jammu and Kashmir, one spotlight of the small-budget movie that grew to become a sleeper hit was good performances led by Yami Gautam within the position of an intelligence officer. Some makers have revealed their want for making movies with politically related topics in current occasions. In the event that they determine acceptable matters and make good movies on them, viewers will gravitate to the theatres in future as nicely.
So what if Bollywood has been trying to find that elusive all-time blockbuster this yr? The message conveyed by a number of different success tales of a smaller selection is that movies can do significantly better than breaking even when the topic and its remedy is correct.
The success of a movie with out massive stars is sweet information, significantly for these producers and filmmakers who want to make movies with offbeat topics. Kiran Rao’s comedy-drama Laapataa Girls, a unusual movie revolving round a mix-up after marriage that concurrently conveys a progressive social message, impressed critics and located its share of audiences. A enjoyable experience with sufficient LOL moments, Kunal Kemmu’s Madgaon Specific has additionally delivered an honest final result, partly due to its small finances.
A few biopics made headlines earlier than their launch. Certainly one of them is Swatantrya Veer Savarkar primarily based on the life and occasions of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and directed, co-produced and co-written by Randeep Hooda, who additionally made a robust assertion of his performing capacity within the titular position. Ravi Jadhav helmed Fundamental Atal Hoon, a biographical drama whose spotlight is Pankaj Tripathi’s efficiency as former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Those that liked these movies would possibly insist that they need to have fared higher on the field workplace. Furthermore, filmgoers who didn’t respect these movies largely agreed that Hooda and Tripathi had carried out remarkably as the 2 protagonists.
A promising movie failed, partly as a result of its director Sriram Raghavan couldn’t match his greatest. That movie was the neo-noir thriller Merry Christmas starring Vijay Sethupathi and Katrina Kaif, a well-scripted providing with strong performances by the 2 leads that didn’t deserve such indifference from filmgoers. Merry Christmas is, nonetheless, destined to affix the record of cult movies which have turn into fashionable after failing to draw viewers to the theatres.
A blockbuster or two within the coming months won’t shock anyone. Till that occurs, one can say for positive that at the very least just a few filmgoers who’ve been spending their treasured cash to go to the theatres recurrently because the begin of the yr should be moderately blissful. A number of movies of various genres have been watchable or higher, which isn’t a nasty factor.
(The author, a journalist for 3 a long time, writes on literature and popular culture. Views expressed within the above piece are private and solely these of the creator. They don’t essentially replicate News18’s views)
