2007: A Look Back & A Look Ahead
I’m writing this strictly from an audience perspective, from a fan of everything from big budget masala films, to those great small budget films which thankfully we’re seeing more and more of, and everything in between.
2007 has thus far been one of the worst years in recent memory. There’s been very little in the way of entertaining, memorable films. For audiences, it’s been one big disappointment after another. The big films we were waiting for, even the ones we were cautiously weary of, all were much worse in terms of content and box office performance than most of us could’ve imagined.
The almighty box office is, like it or not, an essential bottom line. It’s not about what might’ve been, could’ve been or should’ve been. It is a clear reality of whether audiences have accepted a film or not. Let’s not kid ourselves, in this era of crap audiences are hungry, desperately desiring a good film which will entertain & satisfy the cinema-lover in them, maybe even give them some memorable moments to take away.
So far, that hasn’t really happened. Will the remainder of 2007 be any better? I sure as hell hope so. Here’s an in-depth insight, courtesy of AllBollywood.com, previewing all films small, medium and extra-large still to come in the fall/winter of 2007. It’s comprehensive, informative, and a makes for good read. Check it out:
http://www.allbollywood.com/v2/bd/stc/nws/2007/8/5/25621.shtml
Now for the dreaded look back. Disappointment after disappointment, with a decent films keeping the interest level on life-support.
I’ve attempted to be as optimistic as possible (which involves being somewhat delusional). It wasn’t easy.
-
The Good
: The films that were worth watching. Some of them, like Black Friday, Namaste London and Bheja Fry provided some memorable moments whereas others such as Guru or Partner were a good one-time watch.
Black Friday
Namaste London
Bheja Fry
Life In A Metro
Partner
Cheeni Kum
Ek Chalis Ki Last Local
1971
Guru
The Namesake
Parzania
Gandhi My Father
-
The Not So Good but Not Too Bad Either
: One big step down from what can be termed a good movie, these films were watchable… at places… for some…
Nishabd
Shootout At Lokhandwala
Apne
Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd.
Hattrick
Awarapan
Life Mein Kabhie Kabhiee
Just Married
Water
Traffic Signal
Risk
-
The Bad
: Most were expected to suck, and did. Hopefully not too many of us wasted their time with these. Anurag, you seriously wrote those “Boom Boom” dialogues?!
Shakalaka Boom Boom
Aap Ka Suurrooor – The Mooovviieeee
Fool N Final
Good Boy Bad Boy
Kya Love Story Hai
Red
Provoked
Big Brother
Nehlle Pe Dehlla
The rest aren’t even worth a mention.
-
The Disappointing
: Films that we had expectations from but just did not deliver. All of these films had solid backing, good to excellent star casts, big budgets, and most importantly were directed by guys who showed us they had it in them to deliver the goods. Yes these films had their moments, but overall were far below what we expected. Even worse than the worst films of the year, these films drew us into the theatres only to torment us with their insipid screenplays and the unrelenting feeling of being let down.
Eklavya – The Royal Guard – Vinod “Parinda still rocks” Chopra. An all-star cast. Seemingly well etched out characters. Awe-inspiring cinematography at visually striking sets/locations. A magnum opus which, by his Chopra’s own boastings, was set to be a classic. It was just too damn boring. The worst part? Despite a crisp 2-hour length, the film was slow paced, dragging when it should have been bang-twist-bang-shock-boom-wow-great. ~Sigh~
Salaam-E-Ishq – Once the news broke that Nikhil Advani was going on his own, with his own production company making films his way, I admit to being excited. The guy some showed big-league promise. Then came the star cast announcements, the film got bigger by the day. Foolish as it may seem in retrospect, many expected to be immersed in the SEI world, caught up in riveting drama, entertaining melo-drama, funny comedy and a good film. What we got was none of the above. What happened? Oh yes, what usually happens… the film had everything but a solid screenplay.
Tara Rum Pum – Don’t hate me cuz I enjoyed Hum-Tum and Salaam/Namaste. No, S/N wasn’t great cinema, but it was fresh and did entertain. I thought Siddarth Raj Anand would take a step up as a filmmaker, and tackle a more mature subject. I’m a big-time fan of Saif Ali Khan, but even an actor of his caliber couldn’t rise beyond a below-average screenplay. The Life Is Beautiful in a modern, Hindi-masala context intrigued. The film didn’t. It was frustratingly contrived with its blatant attempt at manipulating emotions rather than exploring them. The first big alarm sounds at YashRaj Films…
Naqaab – Touted as the “bounce back” film for talented duo of Abbas Mustan, and starring the Humraaz (a personable favorite film) duo of Akshaye Khanna-Bobby Deol, the film was high on suspense and plot twists but floundered its execution. The background music was terrible over-dramatic, the pacing was erratic, the effects and transitions brutally overdone, and the climaxeses a total downward spiral. If originality isn’t your forte, fine, at least adapt well. Abbas Mustan had done so pretty well in the past with Khiladi, Baazigar, Humraaz, Ajnabee, etc. What happened to these guys?
*Cash – I’ve starred this only because after Anubhav Sinha’s last film Dus, and the success of Dhoom 2, we all knew not to expected all that much. The promos promised an adrenaline rushing all-out-action film with a decent enough cast including Ajay Devgan and Ritiesh Deshmukh. No one expected an intriguing crime-drama but at least a Die-Hard style enjoyable ride. At heart I’m glad it’s not doing well at the box office, because another message needs to be sent out: We would really like to see a riveting story with all the action. When will Indian directors finally figure that out? I’ve actually got some hopes pinned on Tashan… then again, it’s directed by the same guy who wrote both Dhoom films. Haven’t the Bourne series DVDs released in Mumbai?
Jhoom Barabar Jhoom – Even bigger disappointment solely based on director Shaad Ali’s track record. Saathiya was great, Bunty & Babli was a good throw-back to the 70’s style of con-capers. But JBJ, right from the outset, had “what the hell is this?” written all over it. A decent star-cast, great title song and… weird get ups, no story, what the hell is Amitabh wearing and why is he in the film? Ok, they tried to make a crazy, zany off the wall film. We get that. But shouldn’t it have something to it? No? Then it’s going to suck. This was undoubtedly the worst film of the ones that weren’t expected to be so bad. The only silver-lining, if TRP didn’t send a clear enough message, JBJ had to: If you don’t have a captivating script, you don’t have a good film.
Alright, so this was my assessment of the disappointing last 7 months. Would love to hear what you guys think, what films you think should be in different categories and all that. Oh, even though it’s just a link, thoughts on the preview are welcome as well.
The top 3 films I’m looking forward to are:
3 – Johnny Gaddaar
2 – Halla Bol
1 – Om Shaanti Om
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Black Friday
Bheja Fry
Life In A Metro
Cheeni Kum
Ek Chalis Ki Last Local
The Namesake
Parzania
this list is prety awesome….and it also is a signal tat small time films are r coming up at a good pace, i dont remember any year with so many small budget amazing movies…
so infact it hasnt been such a bad year..i feel its been good year till now
and cheeni kum is my favourite move of this year…such light comedy with so much of satire involved….
and wheres BOW BARRACKS FOREVER man….if u havt seen it just rush off…i m also a little surprised why none’s written any review abt this move in PFC….this movie brought the CITY OF JOY bak to life…but i hav a complaint…this movie ran for only one week in Pune…my god..if a movie like this runs for only a week in a movie crazy city like pune…it might not have released in a lot placess in the first place
u seem to have forgotten Dharm too…hey pankaj kapoor has given one ofhis best performancess here…
rnt u looking forward to No smoking and Mithya and blue umbrella….
Dharm was too good…amazing performances n great story…thought provoking
Say Salaam India: good direction…good acting…if SRK is going to get the girls win…sanjay suri has already done it in this film n in an effective manner…
I’m looking forward to No Smoking, Mithya and Blue Umbrella for sure. At the end of the post I only put the top 3 films I’m looking forward. If I were to do a top 10, these films would definately be 3 of my next choices…
I haven’t seen Dharam or Swami… they haven’t released here in Vancouver in any form… Nor have I seen Bow Barracks Forever… Say Salaam India I should’ve included… that one I forgot about… I’d place it in the 2nd category (the one time watch)… Sanjay Suri is underrated, such a natural actor…
You should def see Dharam. Its one of the finest films to have come out this year.
Yeah the small & medium budget films are definately making an impact… big films are crashing… hopefully the industry is taking note… make films with solid foundations… I’ve always thought a good story with a great screenplay populated by characters the audience can relate to/like/sympathise with/loath but are interested in… that’s the best formula for success… in these times if you can’t grip and hold your audiences, all the extras will likely act as a detriment…
I’ve read about it Suchitra… asked a few video shops out here if they have a DVD of it… so far no luck…
It will take time for the dvd of dharam to be out!!! perhaps six months
Hey guys!
Just came back from watching Chak De India. It released today out here in Dubai. The show was house full. Hats off to Shimit Amin, Jaideep Sahni and rest of the team. They have pulled out a humdinger of a movie (to borrow a sports phrase!). Chak De rocks!
>-