By Deepti D.
So people it is the month of July…That means we are over with summer holidays, we are halfway through the season of mangoes and we are almost welcoming monsoons. Oh wait a minute, that also means that we have completed 6 months and its time for us to do our favourite thing… give a midyear report on the Bollywood releases till June 2016! so fasten your seat belts and here we zoom…
Well we started the year with the superstar of the millennium’s much awaited, Wazir which was all about a grief-stricken cop and amputee grandmaster brought together by a peculiar twist of fate.Brilliant performances by Amitabh Bachchan and Farhan Akhtar kept us intrigued for 3 hours. And if this was not enough, we witnessed another superb performance from AB sir in Te3n with the talented lot of Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Vidya Balan.It was all about grandfather, police officer and a priest join hands to investigate and find a missing child. Both the films although didn’t break records at the box office but were certainly appreciated by the critics and masses.
This half year has been a year of biopics and true life stories. Airlift told us the story of an Indian businessman becomes the spokesperson for more than 170,000 stranded countrymen when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. Apart from the gripping story line, it also had melodious music especially the soulful song ‘Soch Na Sake’. Akshay Kumar and Nimrat Kaur played the roles to perfection and one could actually feel in the midst of that crisis.
And then came the story of a 23-year-old girl who has inspired a lot of young women around the world. Yes… you guessed it right, we are talking about the biopic on Neerja Bhanot who gave up her life to save people from the famous PAN AM 73 hijack in 1986. Sonam Kapoor has always been associated to be plastic while giving expressions, but with this movie she shut her critics and gave a mind blowing performance and one could see it becoming a hit at the box office and maybe an award in the offing too!
Sala Khadoos and Azhar gave an insight to the world of sports, the first was a movies based on how a female boxer is trained by a high spirted coach played by Madhavan. Although the movie was not promoted too much, still it was quite appreciated by the people who saw. Azhar was a brilliant portrayal by Emraan Hashmi and he nailed it with his acting, his body language and one could actually see Azhurddin’s life coming alive. Aligarh, a true story of a professor who was suspended from his job because of his sexual orientation. Though it again didn’t too well and was watched by a niche audience, we could actually see the levels of emotions through Manoj Bajpayee’s performance. The half year ended with a mind blowing performance by Randeep Hooda in Sarabjit, based on the Indian prisoner who languished in Pakistani jail for 25 years and ultimately being killed by fellow inmates. Aishwarya Rai gave her all in portraying the anguished sister. But on second thoughts, though Ash succeeded in giving a brilliant performance, I personally felt a Punjabi actress like Divya dutta would have been a better choice.
After the serious stuff, lets come to our favourite genre of comedy movies. Well we saw the releases of movies like Housefull 3, Mastizaade, Kya kool hain hum 3 and Tere Bin Laden 2. Although some these movies were success at the box office, it did make us think… what type of comedy are we heading towards… where the girls are just shown as sex objects and everyone speaks in double meaning dialogues. where has those era of clean comedies gone. I guess this is what we called modern times.
We also had family movies like Kapoor and Sons, Ki and Ka which showed us different shades of family relationships, one dealing with a dysfunctional family setup and the other with role reversal of hubby and wife. Both were greatly appreciated and was a good break from the usual.
The midyear also saw some meaningful cinema like Nil Battey Sanaata, which focussed on mother daughter relationship and also added a hint of adult education. The much controversial Udta Punjab showed us the harsh reality of the drug problem which also lead to the box office register ringing. The year also gave us goose bumps by an award winning performance of a psychopath Raman Raghav played by the versatile Nawazuddin. We also saw the much talented Radhika Apte show her brilliant acting skills in Phobia and boy o boy, it did scare us.
And how could we forget the movies by our very own SRK and Sunny Bhaaji. Fan was an unusual movie, where SRK played his own obsessed fan and Ghayal once again was the sequel to the 1991 Ghayal. Fan did superbly well due to its unique concept and action special effects while Ghayal was not too liked by the audience… maybe sunny Deol losing his charm.Inspite of all these big movies, there were certain other movies too which were not in the main league but did an okok business… like Sanam Re, Baaghi, Waiting and so on.
Half year has finished and the other half looks very promising with movies like Rustom based on the famous Nanavati Murder case and Dangal based on wrestlers and of course our very own SRK’s Raees.Let’s see how the final year report would look, till then enjoy this analysis.
