GUDDU RANGEELA

Release date: 03.07.2015

What: Orchestra singers by day and informants by night, two friends try to make an easy buck by kidnapping a young woman for ransom. And then the trouble starts —  for the audience. Directed by Jolly LLB man Subhash Kapoor, Guddu Rangeela was a wannabe Western that lasted just a week in theatres.
Thumbs up: Arshad Warsi’s comic timing, edgy plot, quirky characters.

Thumbs down: A horribly miscast Amit Sadh, tried to pack in too much, overcooked climax.

t2 review: Guddu Rangeela doesn’t quite rise above the loud and pointless melodrama that Bollywood churned out in assembly-line fashion all through the ’80s and the greater part of the ’90s.

Verdict: FLOP

 

BAHUBALI

Release date: 10.07.2015

What: Set in medieval India, this epic fantasy focused on a young man of superhuman strength and charming disposition who discovers one day that he’s a prince banished from his kingdom. This SS Rajamouli film — backed by Karan Johar — was a blockbuster, raking in a cool Rs 100 crore-plus for its dubbed Hindi version alone. Its budget? The biggest for an Indian film ever at Rs 250 crore.

Thumbs up: The seamless marriage of spectacle and storytelling, Prabhas’s powerful act as Shiva/ Bahubali, the engaging plot and the winning performances.
Thumbs down: The lacklustre first half.

t2 review: Boasting some of the best special effects and computer graphics ever seen in an Indian film, Bahubali holds the viewer’s attention from the get-go, even as Rajamouli uses his vision to explore a concept that is fantastical but with its roots planted firmly in engaging storytelling.

Verdict: SUPERHIT

 

 

BAJRANGI BHAIJAAN

Release date: 17.07.2015

What: Salman Khan scored — and how! — as an earnest Hanuman bhakt with one mission in life: to reunite six-year-old Munni with her parents in Pakistan. This Kabir Khan film won over critics and cinegoers alike to become the biggest hit of the year. How big? Rs 326-crore big, making it the second-biggest Bolly blockbuster of all time and reinforcing Salman’s brute power at the box office. The bigger bonus: we got to see Salman the actor.

Thumbs up: Knee-high Harshaali Malhotra’s ‘aww’ and ‘wow’ debut, a top act from Salman, a strong supporting act from Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Kabir Khan’s assured direction, the smartly done religious subtext, the Salman-Harshaali chemistry,
Pritam’s music — Tu chahiye to Selfie le le re.

Thumbs down: Predictable in parts.

t2 review: Bajrangi Bhaijaan is arguably Salman’s most honest attempt in ages, both as an actor and as a producer. Because Salman is so earnest and endearing as Pavan Chaturvedi, Bajrangi Bhaijaan packs as much punch as a Chulbul Pandey. Without the gaalis or the golis.

Verdict: blockbuster

 

MASAAN

Release date: 24.07.2015

What: Debutant director Neeraj Ghaywan’s double Cannes winner was a gritty look at the lives and loves, trials and tribulations of small-town India. 

Thumbs up: The gripping theme and treatment, power-packed performances from the cast led by Richa Chadha and newcomers Vicky Kaushal and Shweta Tripathi.

Thumbs down: Too few people saw it.

t2 review: The best — and the worst — thing about Masaan is that it’s an extremely neat movie. It doesn’t look like a first film from any angle, whether it’s the pacing or the framing or just the storytelling.... Masaan deserves a watch. Not because it was the toast of a foreign film festival (Cannes) but because it captures our country in a state of flux still struggling to shake off gender and class inequalities.

Verdict: FLOP

 

 

DRISHYAM

Release date: 31.07.2015

What: After murdering a young man inadvertently, a family of four plays a cat-and-mouse game with a top cop in this David (Ajay) vs Goliath (Tabu) tale. A remake of the Malayalam film of the same name, Drishyam was a box-office winner, earning in excess of Rs 80 crore in the domestic market alone.

Thumbs up: The engaging and edge-of-the-seat plot, winning acts from Ajay Devgn and Tabu, the well-crafted twists and turns.

Thumbs down: A boring first half, some convenient plot points.

t2 review: Family film, suspense thriller and police procedural rarely fit into the same movie and in Bollywood they don’t even share the same shelf. Drishyam brings the genres together in a nail-biting David-and-Goliath game with enough twists in the tale to keep you guessing till that clever last shot.

Verdict: HIT

 

BANGISTAN

Release date: 07.08.2015

What: Two bumbling idiots turn suicide bombers to cause terror in the world. Instead, Bangistan managed to terrorise most of us in the audience. 

Thumbs up: You must be joking!

Thumbs down: The whole film.

t2 review: The only thing Bangistan gets right is the title. Right through its never-ending two-and-a-quarter hours, you feel like banging your head against a hard surface.

Verdict: FLOP

 

BROTHERS

Release date: 14.08.2015

What: Holly’s Warrior became Bolly’s Brothers with Akshay Kumar and Sidharth Malhotra as warring siblings who fight it out in the boxing ring. 

Thumbs up: Akshay’s intense act, the kickass action scenes, Sonu Nigam’s Sapna jahaan.

Thumbs down: Too much sentimental slush, a loud and lost Sidharth.

t2 review: Shot extensively in slo-mo and peppered with melancholy songs, the Brothers first half is in constant mourning. The saving grace is the action in the last 40-odd minutes.

Verdict: AVERAGE

 

MANJHI: THE MOUNTAIN MAN

Release date: 21.08.2015

What: Ketan Mehta brought alive the inspiring story of Dashrath Manjhi — the ‘Mountain Man’ who single-handedly chipped away at a mountain for 22 years to carve a road. 

Thumbs up: Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s ‘Shaandar! Zabardast! Zindabad!’ act as Dashrath Manjhi, Radhika Apte’s confident turn, Ketan Mehta’s attention to detail.

Thumbs down: Formulaic and tedious in parts.

t2 review: Manjhi is Ketan Mehta’s best film in a long, long time and yet it cannot hold a hammer or a chisel to Nawaz’s masterclass in acting. 

Verdict: FLOP

 

ALL IS WELL

Release date: 21.08.2015

What: Estranged from his father, a young man tries to bring his divorced parents together in this muddled mess of a movie.

Thumbs up: Some father-son moments between Rishi Kapoor and Abhishek Bachchan.

Thumbs down: The rest of the film.

t2 review: It looks like a soppy family saga from the ’70s, packs in stilted romance from the Bollywood of the ’80s and often resorts to the crassness that made (infamous) our films of the ’90s.

Verdict: FLOP

 

PHANTOM

Release date: 28.08.2015

What: Fresh from the super success of Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Kabir Khan came up with a Zero Dark Thirty-inspired saga of two Indian agents going undercover in Pakistan to take down a wanted terrorist.

Thumbs up: The ‘go India go’ premise, Aseem Mishra’s eclectic frames, Pritam’s foot-tapping Afghan jalebi.

Thumbs down: Lacklustre acts from Saif Ali Khan and Katrina Kaif, the ridiculous twists and turns, boring in parts. 

t2 review: With his roots as a documentary filmmaker, Kabir goes to great lengths to make the preposterous — and very random —mission look plausible. The result is a sleek and stylish action thriller with not enough verve in the vendetta.

Verdict: FLOP