Audience indeed suffered in a big way when it comes to Bollywood dish being served to him. While a couple of not so deserving films still managed to succeed, majority of them were complete no-shows and deservingly fell flat on their face. So without much ado, let’s look at some of the most horrendous films of 2008 that challenged audience’s sensibilities and left them with a heavy head once the end credits started rolling.
10 Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic
‘Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic’ is a film which makes one immediately wonder what is prompting Aditya Chopra to approve scripts like these? Is he actually keeping a hawk’s eye on what goes through his table? However, one sicerely feels that ‘Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic’ is last of such films coming from the stable of Aditya Chopra. After all one can’t help but feel terribly let down by this film by Kunal Chopra who had earlier entertained audience with ‘Hum Tum’ and ‘Fanaa’. However, ‘Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic’ bored, and how! Though mid-way into the film, ‘Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic’ was still watchable due to some imaginative special effects, the film only went downhill thereon. Climax was quite hackneyed too and though ‘Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic’ tried to be extra cute and smart, to one’s utter disappointment, it failed on both accounts.
9 Contract
‘Contract’ was a truly bizarre and a badly made movie. Here there was no drama, no action, no nothing. In fact there was not a single scene that one could pick up and say that ‘I haven’t watched this one before’. Really, this was easily the biggest downer from Ram Gopal Varma ever. And that’s saying a lot since his ‘Aag’ continues to be a fore runner for that position. This is what makes one wonder whether Ramu actually shot the film in entirety or left it to some wannabe directors who would have been excited to come behind the camera for a tried and tested underworld saga. No one seemed interested in the film. Neither the hero or the director, nor does anyone else who was a part of the film. It is this disinterest and boredom which looms large in ‘Contract’ that makes it one of the most aimless tales seen for quite some time.
8 Mere Baap Pehle Aap
Now how could Akshaye Khanna agree to be part of such a flick where all he has to do is shout at his father (Paresh Rawal) in a tone that won’t even befit someone (mis)treating a servant? Now how could Paresh Rawal agree to play a henpecked father (there are no reasons offered that why is he like that)? All that he does is cook food and roam from one end of the big (Studio) hall to another a la Garam Masala. Now how could Priyadarshan come up with such a nightmarish comedy that it takes on the silliness of ‘Krazzy 4’, yet another horrible film of the year so far (more about it later), heads on? The list is so long, so endless, so pointless, so soulless, one can just go on and on and on and dissect each and every situation in the film. And what horrifies is Akshaye’s constant grating act when it comes to his dad that eventually it gets on your nerves to such an extent that even his wicked smile doesn’t prove to be any redemption whatsoever!
7 Jimmy
‘Jimmy’ was fun because it was so bad. Fun, because you know what’s going to happen next. Fun, because overall acting by majority of people who share screen space is so bad that you end up laughing all the time. Fun, because the look is so tacky that you wonder whether Mimoh’s school friends would have come up with a better home video. Fun, because there are sequences where the protagonist escapes from jail only to start dancing in front of a crowd of 200 odd people. Fun, because the cop (played by Shakti Kapoor) keeps asking the hapless heroine – ‘Tumne ‘L’ Lagaya’? (By the way, by L, he means the ‘Learning’ symbol on front and rear car window!) ‘Par Jimmy Can Dance Saala!’ – That’s all you say to yourself once you are through watching ~2 hours of ‘Jimmy’. Seriously, ‘Jimmy’ is an ordeal. In fact it is so clichéd, so contrived, so dumb, so predictable, so formulaic, so etc. etc. etc., that is is fun!
6 Chamku
‘Chamku’ is such a waste of time, energy and money which would had gone into it’s making. It is a sheer bad film and doesn’t have any pretext, doesn’t follow any direction and worse, ends in such an abrupt manner that the immediate exclamation that comes over it – ‘Ab Ye Kya Tha’. This takes one to the conclusion that ‘Chamku’ was a hurried job that just came on floors without something that goes by the name of ‘bound script’, had it’s scenes shot as per the whims and fancies of anyone and everyone who was involved in it’s making (basically no control of the director) and in the end was edited in an exasperated manner after everyone associated with the film realizing that this was a mess in the offering.
5 Tashan
‘Tashan’ turned out to be, what else, but ‘zabardasti ka tashan’! It had brought with it so much of hope. One would have thought that Adi would go all out with his mega starcast, more so because music by Vishal-Shekhar was great and locations were looking stunning. All in all it had seemed to be one popcorn fare in the offering. Alas, it was never the case to be! It’s a pity that Akshay wasn’t quite a central character in ‘Tashan’. After all, he is the same man who has made even ‘Singh Is Kinng’ a cult film by his sheer screen presence. And to think of it, he was not even in the promotion of ‘Tashan’ what with Saifeena hogging away all the limelight. Now, if only his ‘Ravan’ act would have been bombarded all over the channels, ‘Tashan’ would have been richer by a few crores. In fact one even feels sorry for poor Saif. He seemed to have got into a situation which he had found himself in the days of ‘Main Khiladi Tu Anari’. A pucca second lead. The sad part is that the movie could never establish who was the first lead – Anil Kapoor or Akshay Kapoor!
4 Haal E Dil
It makes you pinch yourself really hard into believing that you are actually watching a film in the 21st century when the setting is terribly outdated and the jokes completely banal. It makes you feel really-really bad for all the actors out there who are made to become a part of a film like this which on paper itself is a failure in the making. It makes you feel sad for all the music directors who have come up with some real good work, all of which will certainly go down the drain due to an absolutely poor film. One wonders what exactly was the story (if there was any) that ‘Haal E Dil’ was trying to tell? If an ordinary plot was not bad enough (boy meets girl who is already in love with some other boy who has been forced to stay away due to ‘zameen-asmaan ka difference’ between their social status etc. etc.), the narrative completely killed whatever little impact it could have possibly made. It was jerky, to say the least. There are some films that make one feel like picking up the phone, call up the writer and the director and ask a question in an exasperated tone – ‘Mera Kasoor Kya Tha’ (what was my fault)? ‘Haal E Dil’ is one of those films.
3 Money Hai Toh Honey Hai
‘Money Hai To Honey Hai’ was an attempt at making Govinda a superstar all over again. There was lavish funding, some of the most exotic locations were chosen, friends (Ganesh Acharya) were allowed to wield the megaphone as directors, composers were inspired to deliver music as required by the genre of the films and complete freedom was given to the team to work together and deliver a product that would get a box office success. Alas, majority of them let down the people who invested in the film! ‘Money Hai To Honey Hai’ didn’t even have a feet to run, whether uphill or downhill. Ganesh Acharya and his team actually made such a slip-shod film in the form of ‘Money Hai To Honey Hai’ that it almost acted as a ‘phoonk’ to ‘Anil Devgan Ki Aag’ (read Haal E Dil)!
2 Krazzy 4
A couple of smile worthy moments (and we are not even talking about full throated laughter here) is all that you find in ‘Krazzy 4’. And that too happens because you get so tired of seeing a boring narrative unfold in front of you that anything that comes with the faintest of humor quotient makes you search for something redeeming. ‘Krazzy 4’ doesn’t even try to tell a story. There are some films which are good but loose out at the box office due to uninspiring promotion, lack of buzz, wrong timing or sheer bad luck. And then there are some movies which are terrible, have a shoddy plotline, do not come with any sense or purpose, don’t even try to entertain and still manage to do well at the box office. In fact the makers did just the right thing (for them but definitely not the audience) to have centered their promotion on these handful of funny liners while camouflaging them entirely with the three item numbers. They got far greater than what the film deserved and we, the audience, got the crown of being ‘Krazzy Folks’ to have watched the film!
1 Drona
Frankly, ‘Drona’ turns out to be such a mumbo-jumbo and though it does hold you reasonably OK till the interval point, it completely goes haywire after the first half. More often than not, there is always something redeeming about a film, something which actually ends up standing out to qualify as a ‘paisa vasool’ moment! Alas, even that doesn’t happen in ‘Drona’. What turns out to be an absolute downer is the basic narrative of the film that makes you go to sleep mid-way into the film. ‘Don’t ‘Mr. Money Bags’ look at least for the basic storyline, let alone the script, when they assign crores into the making of a film? Are they just happy to have big names in their film’s cast? Are they just plain ecstatic with the belief that ‘Hey look, we too have a superhero film coming up’? Are they just doing it in order to make a biggie addition to their movie catalogue in order to keep the shareholders happy? Seriously, what were the producers/investors thinking when they backed this project?
