Half-yearly Bollywood report

Here is a list of the biggest ‘low profile’ achievements of Bollywood since the beginning of the year

In a lot of ways, Bollywood is like our cricket team of the 1990s. It has the capability to dash out hopes when we expect the highest. It pleasantly surprises and awes us when we expect the least.

2017 in a lot of ways has been a year of A-lister overrated, dragging and boring movies. ‘Raees’, ‘Rangoon’, ‘Noor’, ‘OK Jaanu’, ‘Commando 2’ are just a few of the A-lister names from which we expected better but got stuff which you could barely sit through.

However, when you sum up the Bollywood half yearly report card the situation is not so bleak. There have been some surprise winners which were more than worth the ticket you paid for. Sure they went unnoticed, but the fact is these movies have won hearts.

The Ghazi Attack
A movie which was supposed to only exist on YouTube initially became a big project because one south superstar believed in the concept, we of course know him very well for his onscreen avatar of Bhallal Deva - Rana Daggubati. ‘The Ghazi Attack’ came out of nowhere and struck a chord with audiences big time. It had a focused track on underwater submarine warfare. Make no mistake that in terms of sheer new concept this one will one day rank very high in our war movies genre. Propped up by some blazing screen performances by the likes of KK Menon. This one came as a balm for those who suffered over hyped January duds like ‘OK Jaanu’ and ‘Raees’.

Phillauri
Forget what Anushka Sharma has deserved till date as an actress. ‘Phillauri’ and ‘NH 10’ make her our first intelligent female filmmaker since Sai Paranjpe. The sheer different approach with which this movie was filmed made it a big time watch. On the surface, it is a simple story of a woman who becomes a ghost because of an unfulfilled wish of love. It is the treatment, which makes it so different that if you actually look for sincere attempts of romance this one deserves to be in your DVD collection. One day when Anushka Sharma chooses to retire she will be proud of this attempt. This one like ‘The Ghazi Attack’ did create reasonable ripples at the BO.

Naam Shabana
As Bollywood lovers were busy licking their wounds inflicted by such glorious garbage like ‘Rangoon’ in February, in March Bollywood provided us besides ‘Phillauri’ another anti-depressant called ‘Naam Shabana’. Its flavour and feel, was as if we had walked into an upgraded version of the 1990s cult classic ‘Khoon Bhari Mang’. A girl who thinks she is a coward all her childhood, one day explodes and becomes a ferocious fighter and undercover agent for that organisation called “BABY”. Besides being a “paisa vasool” standalone movie. The success of NS ensures that we have our first thriller genre franchise evolving. Those of us who have tracked Neeraj Pandey and ‘Baby’ were totally stumped by the way this story thread was developed. This Shabana was long needed and came at the right time.

Hindi Medium
To put it in one line Irrfan Khan is Bollywood's answer to Amaron Batteries. When will this guy run out of the simmering energy he brings to the screen? His biggest plus as an actor is he knows exactly the point to shut down where a passionate actor can stop from becoming a pain in the nerve over actor. It was his and Deepak Dobriyal's combined act, which lifts ‘Hindi Medium’ to be one the better-made satires in recent years. Coming on the heels of some high rated nerve wreckers this one was one much needed fresh air breeze.

Maatr
‘Maatr’ got sandwiched between the overhyped torture called ‘Noor’ and the magnum opus of the decade ‘Baahubali’ in the immediate week after it. Still for those who walked in to watch ‘Maatr’ saw one of our better-made vigilante movies on women safety. Raveena's performance proved that the lady still has a lot of fire left in her. ‘Maatr's BO numbers probably do not rank with the other four in this list. It still deserves a mention in Bollywood's unexpected surprise better attempts. If you don't believe me then go across SM and search for audience reactions on ‘Maatr’. You might then want to catch it on DVD.