“The Feel-Good Fillum Of The Decade”
Slumdog Millionaire has been marketed/promoted as “The Feel-Good Film of The Decade” because one of the critic used that phrase in his review to describe the film And here we have announced the film as “The Masala Fillum of The Decade” or something like that, but we mean same. However……
Surely, in last decade we must have churned out at least dozens of feel-good or masala films, which are ten times better than Slumdog Millionaire. After all we have invented Masala genre.
So let’s look at Hindi films released in last decade and try to find a better Feel-Good or/& Masala film that challenges the statement.
1999
I didn’t follow Hindi films back then – not as much as I do now. I saw films when some TV channels showed it and on rare occasions I went to cinema. We relied on TV channels to show the films.
I believe 90s was all about Policewallahs – they disappeared slowly, Familywallahs – they grew stronger, Comedeywallahs – they tried hard, and Pyaarwallahs – they never die. And a few gangster movies. Apart from gangster movies, all those genres are meant to be Feel-Good films.
And year 1999 was no different – according to my research: ‘Sarforash’ (Policewallah), ‘Taal’ (Familywallahs), ‘Haseena Maan Jayegi’/'Biwi No.1′ (Comedywallahs), ‘Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam’ (Pyarwallahs), and ‘Vaastav’ (Gangsterwallahs). And these were the six movies in year 1999 that took most of the awards.
Also in that year some indy films started appearing and Akshay Kumar was still in his Khiladi get-up, but he did movies like ‘Sangharsh’ and ‘Jaanwar’.
My favorite film of that year was ‘Sarforash’ and it ain’t a masala film, or it is a feel-good film. He had another good release in year 1999, which was ‘Mann’, but it bombed.
‘Vaastav’ is a masala – gangster film, but not a feel-good film. Taal had quality music but it is a crap film. ‘Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam’ – a romantic flick – that could be classified as a ‘Feel-Good’ film, but not a masala film. Can it be?
So we are left with ‘Biwi No.1′ and ‘Haseena Maan Jayegi’. Both were feel-good and masala film, but they are not winners.
The Masala – Feel – Good Film of Year 1999 gong goes to Ram Gopal Verma’s ‘Mast’. This film had all the masala ingredients: comedy, action, romance, melodrama, spoof, songs, hero, heroine, villain, whatnot. And it had a good feel through out the film.
2000
World was meant to go Kabooom, but it didn’t happen. I stayed up to witness the Kabooom but nothing happened. But after a week something did happen in India. A new star was born. ‘Kaho Na Pyaar Hogaya’. People in India went crazy over the new star: Hrithik Roshan. It was all about his dance in ‘Ek Pal Ka Jaana’. Everyone wanted to dance like him. It was a romantic film, but had its masala ingredients, for example, double role. I didn’t like the film. I hated it. I still hate it. It is rubbish. But the movie won all the plaudits.
Then another two star were born with Refugee. I saw this film in India. I thought I liked the film but after seeing it second time I aksed myself ‘why did I like this film first time around?’
Year 2000 bought so many changes. New stars were born to challenge the old stars. David Dhawan lost his forumale. Aamir Khan did a typical masala film – ‘Mela’ and it flopped. Shah Rukh Khan launched his own production house and wasted money on shooting songs of ‘Phir Bhi Dil Hain Hindustani’. Oh and, I nearly forgot, ‘Mohabaatien’. It wasn’t year for a Khan. The year belong to new stars and it was the year that redefined Akshay Kumar’s career – he did his usual khiladi movies, but…..
The – Masala – Feel – Good Film of Year 2008 is ‘Hera Pheri’. Can it be any other film from that year? No.
2001
Some people say that year 2001 redefined Indian cinema, for good. It inspired new generation of filmmakers. A new audience – multiplex audience was born, I believe. And a couple of Khans came back strongly but a Deol spoilt the party for them.
How would you define ‘Gadar – Ek Prem Katha’? If you take the partition and patriotism out of the equation, then it is a romantic film that has shades of Masala genre, and in the end it is a feel-good film. But it is not kind of film that would challenge the statement.
Shah Rukh Khan’s ‘Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham’ – a familywallah film – so it is a feel-good film. I didn’t like it.
Amitabh Bachchan had Aks – a policewallah film. A masala film – an inspired film. Police vs Khooni. It had dialouges as well, for example, ‘Naa Koi Marta Hain, Na Koi Marta Hain, Yeh Mein Nahin Kehta, Yeh Geeta Mein Likha Hain’. The film didn’t have a good-feel/masala film; it tried to be something else.
‘Rehna Hain Tere Dil Mein’ – another feel-good film of the year. One of the best film of the year. But not a masala film…
Year 2001 was Aamir Khan’s year – his career was redefined again – it was a new chapter for him – and took him to the next level of the stardom. He had two feel-good film releases and both were major hits.
Dil Chata Hain. An urban young film. Romantic drama. It was one of the feel-good film of the year. It was a masala film, a smart masala film, but without the villain and dramabaazi. It was a masala film for the niche audience. But…
The Masala – Feel – Good – Film of Year 2001: Lagaan! A textbook masala-feel-good film. A very-balanced film. This film had most of the genres. Patriotic, Sport, Melodrama, Musical, Dialoguebaazi, Villain, Romantic – triangle love story, Hero, Heroine, and a Happy ending. And it went to Oscar.
2002
Year 2002 was disappointing. Some quality films did release in year 2002, for example, Company, Saathiya, Road, Makeed, and Legend of Bhagat Singh.
But not many good feel-good or masala films released in year 2002. Vikram Bhatt tried to create an old-skool action/masala flick with ‘Awaara Paagal Deewana’ but failed. And Akshay kumar was back to square one. He was still working on re-creating his image.
The Masala – Feel – Good – Film of Year 2002?
2003
So many films were released in year 2003 than previous years, well, according to IMDB. I need to look at IMDB, to see which films were released in what year. Cos I ain’t IMDB. And hence, the year was better than previous year.
We saw Bhoot, 3 Deewarien, Haazaron Khwaisien Aisi (it started doing festival rounds), Jhankar Beats, Waisa Bhi Hota Hain Part 2, Maqbool, Pinjar, Mein Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon, Haasil, etc…
Only one decent Masala film was released in Year 2003, and that was ‘Dum’. A policewallah film – fight against the system. Had action, romance, dialogues, villian – all typical 70s Masala ingredients, but it lacked that punch. The Hero wasn’t a star. The villain wasn’t a start. They were quality actors.
The Masala – Feel – Good – Film of Year 2003: Munnabhai MBBS. We ended the year with a Feel-Good-Film! But technically, it wasn’t a masala film. Or Masala genre was redefined. (I saw LOC over this film on Boxing Day! )
2004
It was a good year for RGV and his factory: ‘Ek Haseena Thi’, ‘Ab Tak Chappan’, ‘Vaastu Shashtra’ and ‘Naach’.
I think, in year 2004, Neha Dhupai made a statement in one of her interview that, “Only Sex or Shah Rukh Khan sells in Bollywood.” So most of the films this year were about Sex and Shah Rukh Khan had a couple of films.
Farah Khan – a fan of Masala Films – made her debut as a Director with ‘Main Hoo Na’ starring Shah Rukh Khan. Not surprising it was a masala film. Army replaced policewallahs and beeskoot smugglers replaced Terrorists in the film. There was romance – a mature romance – a teen romance. Melodrama – about family – naazayaz aulad – etc. But, I didn’t like the film. It was too cheesy, over-the-top, unbalanced; I forwarded so many scenes and still could not sit through the film till the end.
Another big Masala film released in year 2004 was ‘Dhoom’. It was an angrezi sort of masala film. It didn’t have the Indian touch. The audience went crazy over bike and the girl in Bikini. That’s about it. No Masala!
There was one more Masala film in year 2004, which was 100 times better than Dhoom & Mein Hoon Na. Do you know which one was it? ‘Khakee’. Old skool policwallah film with the new twang. The villain wasn’t a smuggler. The policewallahs were an ass. And still this film had the Masala more than Dhoom and Main Hoon Na had! But…
For me, The Masala – Feel – Good Film of Year 2004 has to be Swades. Again Ashutosh went for tried-tested feel-good formulae. Yes, the story was not typical, but it was a text book film and had the same feel as Lagaan. One of my favorite film.
2005
Kajra Re Year! Yash Raj brand grew stronger – after a successful year 2004 – they found a new formulae with Hum Tum and Dhoom. So did RGV factory grew stronger. And sex craze in Bollywood grew bigger…
My favorite films of the year were: D, Home Delivery, Iqbal, Bluffmaster, Socha Na Tha, Sarkar, and Hanuman.
Iqbal is the Masala – feel – good film of year 2005.
2006
I went to India for holiday and it changed my perspective towards many things. The year PFC was born. The year we saw dozen of real quality films. Aahista Aahista, Khosla Ka Khosla, Lage Raho Munnabhai, Omakara, and Rang De Basanti.
And in year 2006 we saw so many wannabe masala films: Apna Sapna Money, Bhagam Bhag, Dhoom 5, Don, Family, Golmaal, Krrish and Jaane-E-Maan. None of those films impressed me.
The Masala – Feel – Good Film of Year 2006: Rang De Basanti! First half flirt, just before interval a bang, and second half all serious. The masala structure. And someone died in this film. The end was different not of a typical masala film and yet it is an ending of a masala film – because it had a sortish happy ending and hence it is a feel-good film.
I am not going to go in detail now because this post is a bit stretched now and most of you or people who eats badaam everyday will have a good memory and remembers last two years, so I don’t need to go into the detail and can go straight into announcing winner of the year (according to me).
2007
It is between ‘Chak De! India’, ‘Jab We Met’, and ‘Taare Zameen Par’. All these three films has got good feel to it, but aren’t masala films. All masala films released in year 2007 flopped – one of those film – ‘RGV KI Aag ‘- was the biggest flop of the year. Hang on, ‘Om Shanti Om’, is classfied as a masala film and that was hit. But, I didn’t like it.
The Masala – Feel – Good Film of Year 2007: ‘Chak De! India’. For simple reason, this film has got more masala ingredients/format than Jab We Met and Taare Zameen Par.
2008
‘Ghajini’ is the masala film of the year. ‘Rab Ne Jodi Bana Di’ is the feel-good film of the year. Neither of those films are good, though. ‘Sing is Kinng’ and ‘Race’ are ridiculous pindoo peekture, so forget about that.
I was hoping ‘Drona’ would the masala film of the year, which is quality as well. But I was disappointed. The film is poor.
The Masala – Feel – Good Film of Year 2008: ‘Welcome To SajjanPur’ It could be ‘Dasvidanya’ as well. I am undecided.
So is ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ really the feel-good film of the decade or the masala film of the decade? In my filmi opinion, no it isn’t. It is not even closer to ‘Lagaan’.
Tags: Chak De! India, Dasvidanya, Dil Chata Hain, Hera Pheri, iqbal, khakee, Lagaan, Masala, Slumdog Millionaire, welcome to sajjanpur
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
Wow Goonda! What a good post, agree with most of your selections. 2002 you can give it to APD, it’s a cult and the last film I enjoyed Paresh Rawal in.
‘Haseena Maan Jaayegi’, ‘Aawara Paagal Deewana’ are two films from their respective years that I can still watch for the comic performances. Also, these two films were last Govinda and Johnny Lever films for their mind-blowing acts. Well, for Govinda until Partner that is..
And I am surprised ‘Lage Raho Munnabhai’ didn’t win for its release year..
@Tushar – Paresh Rawal gave ‘Hungama’ after APD, which was very good for his, and Rajpal Yadav’s performances. Not to mention off-late in Mumbai Meri Jaan and OLLO he was good. Revisit your memory, and you will realize that it’s Johnny Lever who has not given single good film after APD.
Tejas, I didn’t enjoy him after Hungama I guess. He has become more of a film spoiler for me now. Both MMJ & OLLO were ruined by him.
@Tushar
Bhai … With all due respect to your cinematic sensibility …
Are You Nuts … Aap kya kah rahe hai aapko pata bhi hai kya?
Paresh’s Performance in both the films was EXCELLENT…
Ye kehna ki “He ruined the two films” is like saying Sholay was ruined by Gabbar Singh …
He was the one due to which I enjoyed both the films immensely …
He MAY win a National award this year for MMJ …
And I bet other awards like Filmfare, Screen etc. too …
Nice One HG. Can’t agree or disagree… my memory beats me when it comes to Masala.
@ Tushar – Really? Paresh?
Remember the scene in MMJ where he sits down when his son walks out? And the intro to the song at that railing… really?
When beats his son and asks him to shut up in OLLO, really?
The scene where he sleeps and raises up when John walks-in, in No Smoking – Really?
That chai dukaan shot in Baghban…
u know what I am talking about… I rate him on par with Kota Srinivas Rao when it comes to character acting… way over Anupam Kher and def better than Boman… u know what I am talking about!!!
I miss Johnny Lever… he was damm good!
@Avi, happens man. There is nothing like absolute film reading. So, happens.
@Ravptor, I slept off in those scenes. In OLLO, I simply walked out to get the popcorn, whenever he came all prepared and set to rule the screen I mean.
No Smoking I forgot. That I liked everything.
Baghban, sorry man, not me.
And please spare me the film sensible guy judgment guys, I ain’t no film sensible guy. I prefer to be called unruly and insane.
hahah… honest… nice!
I agree with all your selections except in 2006 which i feel should be ‘lage Raho Munnabhai’
Rang De Basanti was much better than ‘Lage Raho Munnabhai’ – on many levels. One of the reason I selected Rang De Basanti over ‘Lage Raho Munnabhai’ was because the ending and it was preachy. Lage Raho… had a typical ending where as Rang De Basanti had a slightly hatke ending but it still was a happy ending..
Conclusion: Rang De Basanti is a far superior movie than Lage Raho Munnabhai.
Well, of course we are just discussing opinions here and that really does not make an actor/star good or bad but then I do agree with Tushar about Paresh Rawal. I haven’t seen APD but I stopped enjoying his performances after Hera Pheri. Maybe its something about his own saturation and repeating the same thing over and over again…or him being a tad bit too confident about his acting (coz he is a damn good actor) and so acting by rote…u know come deliver dialogues and go types…
So true Fatema. I wrote more about this in my OLLO review. I have decided I am gonna skip films starring him for some time now.
Goonda Maharaj, aren’t these critics from the Western world?
I mean, I can see why you’ve chosen those Hindi films, but ‘Slumdog’ isn’t really Hindi cinema is it?
I haven’t seen the pirated prints of ‘Slumdog’ which are available, so I can’t really comment until after the release date next week.
Feel good film in the International field? Who knows.
But I doubt it would fit into the Hindi film category.
Maybe the feel-good tag needs to be compared to the ‘Love Actually’s and ‘Bridget Jones’s na?
Steve, yes, Slumdog Millionaire is a british film and that phrase could have been used by a British critic. And I didn’t look at world cinema to counter that statement, because the film is bollywoodish and people here think Slumdong Millionaire is bestest bollywoodish to have been made since… , so…. I just looked at Hindi Films, that sorta challenged both statement. I guess i didn’t come across clearly in my article…
most of the choices are ok,but when it comes to the main topic,which is comparison with Slumdog Millionaire..its an immature post…no offences Sir,but same is the case with publicity if it is being promoted as a masala film..its a hard hitting piece of wonderful cinema…in this list only fw names like TZP,Lagaan,CDI,RDB come close to it,others are not even comparable…SM is a classic in itself
also missing out A Wednesday was a blaunder…wasnt it??
‘Guru’ was the feel-good movie of the year 2007, alongwith Chak De India!
@Goonda: To support you man! I don’t consider Slumdog great at all (or even feel-good) let alone comparison to the likes of Lagaan, TZP!
People may worship and rave the movie for what it is of no worth… very truly I haven’t seen anything so clumsy for years from Danny Boyle. Every shitty thing has been packed in so neatly that at the end of the day India is about a country that is full of people who bathe in human excreta and strike mortifying comments over the low class! Have to accept it- the movie has been made for those who always wanted to believe that!
The main thing for me is, it should be a good movie worth my money and time. I am not a critic or a distributor and do not wish to get into the shoes of them. The movie should hold me to the end without bakwaas. ‘A Wednesday’ did that last year, Im really not sure which fucker dint like it. Can SM do that? Will have to wait and watch.