May 10, 2002 03:10 PM
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(Updated May 10, 2002 03:34 PM)
How does one select the Worst Hindi films of all time? I mean, there are bad movies and there are terrible movies like Daku Rani, Chambal ki Kasam, Gupt Gyan, Kama Rog and so on. But no intelligent person would dare to come near 50 feet radius of a cinema hall exhibiting such movies.
How does one review movies one hasn’t seen? So a list of ten worst films has to based on a different criteria, which I have decided to be the Worst Box-office Hit movies of all time. (Warning: Some of the movies do not really deserve to be in such a list and I have included them for personal reasons, I hope if you happen to like such movies, you will forgive me)
1.Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham: I, hereby declare K3G as the worst movie of all time, without even bothering to see it once. Actually, I made this declaration after seeing the promos of the movie itself. One look at the ghastly scene of SRK and Hrithik Roshan folding their hands and shedding copious tears before their Mommy-Papa and I went “eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek” and made a grand declaration like Bhisma Pitamah – Come what may, I will never see this movie till the end of my life - Imagine my horror, when the Sunday after the release, I saw five stars in its TOI review by Khalid Mohammed. How could I have been so wrong in my judgement, I wondered. Thankfully reports from my unfortunate friends and relatives, confirmed my suspicion that Khalid M had got a big knock on his head and as a result saw the extra four stars.
2.Hum Aapke Hai Kaun?: I hate attending weddings and watching wedding videos is even a bigger torture, where for hours you see everyone smiling idiotically and eating food and smiling and ….. So when I learnt that this movie was nothing but a glamorous wedding video, I decided to avoid watching it. Until one fateful day, when power went off and I was feeling dead bored. By that time HAHK has entered into the record books as the top grosser of all time. So with great trust in the judgement of our teeming masses, I booked a ticket. And what a experience it was….the entire screen covered by flashing bulbs which started flashing every time, Salman and Madhuri broke into a jig. And since they did that nearly 14 times, by the time, I left the hall, I had a massive headache. I still get a headache whenever the picture of Madhuri Dixit dancing in a green salwar kurta covered by multi-coloured lighbulbs enters my mind.
3.Kuch Kuch Hota Hai: This is what I learnt from Karan Johar’s other disaster –
a. That if you wear a short skirt, you are not a good Indian.
b. But if you wear a short skirt and sing “Om Jagdish Hare” you become a good Indian.
c. If you are smart woman, wear pants and regularly beat the hero at a basket-ball game, then you don’t deserve to be a wife of that hero.
d. But if you instead start wearing yellow-colored saris, blush when your “pallu” falls off and allow the hero to beat you at a basket-ball game, then you qualify for the great Indian wedding bazaar.
I think Karan Johar ought to join the BJP. If and when Murli Manohar Joshi kicks the bucket, he has a good chance of becoming the next HRD minister in Vajpayee’s cabinet.
4.Dilwale Dulhania Le Jaayenge: Things I learnt after watching Aditya Chopra’s debut movie: that one should respect your lover’s parents, even if they happen to be narrow-minded, bigoted scums; that you should be willing to sacrifice your happiness, to satisfy the whims and fancies of such self-centred, opiniated creatures; that if you want to marry your sweetheart, wooing her dad is as important as wooing her!
The super-success of this regressive movie proves that the word “rebellion” is dead as far as the youth of today are concerned, who are willing to suck upto the establishment, rather than stand up for their beliefs.
5.Mohabattein: Even though I hated DDLJ for being regressive, it was still good entertainment, and one hoped his next venture would be as enjoyable. But what a total drag it turned out to be! Set in a never never-chopra-land called “Gurukul” it had a very un-cool Guru, and 25-year old plus shisyas who pretended to be school children. Three hours of unbearable melodrama!
6.Fiza: There was a time when I used to love Khalid M. for his Sunday reviews which were much more enjoyable than the movies he reviewed. And since he had done a competent job as a screenplay writer for Shyam Benegal for autobiographical movies like Mammo, Sardari Begum and Zubeida, I had high expectations from his directorial venture. I still find it difficult to believe that he made all the same mistakes for which he used to trash other movie-makers. It was a complete mish-mash of a movie – what with the central character Fiza, a conservative muslim girl suddenly breaking into dance routine at a disco, his boyfriend downloading his brother’s picture from some obscure website, and a hackneyed Mother India type of ending. A good plot completely ruined by an unconvincing script and incompetent direction.
7.Gadar: This jingoistic over-the-top patriotic movie provides the answer to India’s defence problems. India doesn’t need fighter planes, submarines, remote tracking systems, Agni or Prithvi etc; what India needs are a few hundred punjab da puttars with the lung-power of Sunny Deol to beat the hell out of the Pakis! George saheb, are you listening?
8.Bombay: While I have a high regard for Mani Ratnam as a film-maker, and while Bombay wasn’t exactly a bad movie, one certainly expected him, to handle such a topic with greater sensitivity. Can you imagine a movie on Gujarat riots with songs like Kuchi Rakkamma or Humma Humma inserted right in the middle of rioting? As some one who has witnessed the 1992 riots from close quarters, I felt distressed at the slip-shod manner in which they were covered in this movie.
9.Baazigar: A hero as a murderer!!! I can live with that – but did this movie deserve all the hype and publicity that it got? The corny comedy track featuring Johny Lever was enough to turn me off.
- I can’t make up my mind over the tenth movie. Help me decide by selecting your Favorite Worst movie of all time. The winner will get two free tickets of the latest blockbuster Aap Mujhe Aache Lagne Lage
