HAPPY NEW YEAR

Release date: 24.10.2014

What: A man with revenge on his mind gets together a group to steal a handful of diamonds. Their ticket to the high-security diamond vault? The World Dance Championship. The big problem? They are all non-dancers! The Farah Khan film proved to be a paisa vasool ROFL ride, giving us a Rs 200 crore box-office juggernaut.

Thumbs up: The comic moments, Abhishek Bachchan’s Nandu Bhide, Deepika Padukone’s sizzle in Lovely, Shah Rukh Khan in a beard,Vishal-Shekhar’s chartbusters, the fun cameos, the end credits, especially that first peek of SRK’s little one AbRam.

Thumbs down: Its three-hour running time.

t2 review: Overlong yes, a little implausible for sure, but Happy New Year is also a lot of fun and is peppered with long, clean laughs.

Verdict: BLOCKBUSTER

BANG BANG

Release date: 02.10.2014

What: A young woman gets inadvertently involved with a robber on the run in this Knight and Day remake in which Hrithik Roshan became Tom Cruise and Katrina Kaif was Cameron Diaz. Bang Bang was 156 minutes of sheer torture, but the Siddharth Anand film powered its way to a box-office haul of Rs 180 crore-plus!

Thumbs up: Hrithik the hotbod, the picture-perfect locales, Vishal-Shekhar’s foot-tapping music — Tu meri to Bang bang to Meherbaan.

Thumbs down: Incoherent plot, half-hearted performances, inadvertently laugh-out-loud dialogues.

t2 review: Drastically dumbed down, everything about Bang Bang is so criminally absurd that you are always too cold to warm up to the leads.

Verdict: SUPERHIT

HAIDER

Release date: 02.10.2014

What: Vishal Bhardwaj rounded off his Shakespeare trilogy with his desi adaptation of Hamlet, setting the tale of revenge and retribution in the strife-torn Kashmir of the ’90s.

Thumbs up: The seamless transition from text to screen, power-packed acts led by Tabu and Shahid Kapoor, Irrfan Khan’s cameo, the chaos and conflict captured by Pankaj Kumar’s lens.

Thumbs down: Flawed and flaccid in parts, over-indulgent in places, the bloody climax.

t2 review: There’s so much to rave about in Haider. And yet there’s so much to rant at. It’s definitely his best film since Omkara but yet the weakest of his Bard trilogy.

Verdict: ABOVE AVERAGE

TAMANCHEY

Release date: 10.10.2014

What: A gangster’s moll falls in love with his henchman... and all hell breaks loose. For the viewer, that is. Despite the generous smattering of sex scenes, Tamanchey was a big bore.

Thumbs up: The RD Burman classic Pyaar mein dil pe maar de goli.

Thumbs down: Wafer-thin plot, an uninspired Nikhil Dwivedi and an oversexed Richa Chadda.

t2 review: This is no soft-porn film. Even though reclining in a gold class seat all by yourself in an empty plex hall may give you the feeling that you are some feudal lord watching raunchy scenes at your own private theatre.

Verdict: flop

SONALI CABLE

Release date: 17.10.2014

What: A small neighbourhood cable Internet company is being muscled out by a broadband giant, even as a love story plays out and relationships are tested. The rest of Sonali Cable was an incoherent mess.

Thumbs up: A premise with promise, an effortless Ali Fazal.

Thumbs down: Too many sub-plots, a wooden and miscast Rhea Chakraborty.

t2 review: Charudutt Acharya’s directorial debut has a noble thought but the execution is a big letdown. Just goes to show what’s on paper is important but what you do with it is the real deal.

Verdict: FLOP

ROAR

Release date: 31.10.2014

What: The constant tussle between beast and man was the subject of this film directed by ’90s leading man Kamal Sadanah. We couldn’t figure out the rest of the bore called Roar.

Thumbs up: Scenic Sunderbans.

Thumbs down: The rest of the film.

Verdict: FLOP

SUPER NANI

Release date: 31.10.2014

What: Treated like a doormat by family and friends, a grandmom decides to hit back... Rekha-style!

Thumbs up: Rekha as ‘Super Nani’.

Thumbs down: Half-baked plot, inconsistent performances.

t2 review: Rekha remains the only reason to tune into this bhoole bisre geet. Mother 98 in 1999. Super Nani in 2014. Anyone wants to put their money on Rekha playing ‘The Great Grandma’ in 2029?

Verdict: FLOP

RANG RASIYA

Release date: 07.11.2014

What: The controversial romance between 19th century painter Raja Ravi Varma and his muse Sugandha was brought alive in this Ketan Mehta film, released after being stuck in the cans for close to a decade.

Thumbs up: Randeep Hooda as Raja Ravi Varma, the choice of a bold subject, the aesthetically done nude scenes.

Thumbs down: The blatant tampering of history.

t2 review: Controversy and eroticism colour a film that celebrates freedom of art.

Verdict: FLOP

THE SHAUKEENS

Release date: 07.11.2014

What: Basu Chatterjee’s 1982 bitter-sweet film Shaukeen, a story of three old men looking for some fun in the twilight of their lives, became a crass and crude fest in this Akshay Kumar-produced film.

Thumbs up: Akshay’s cameo as an exaggerated version of himself, Lisa Haydon’s long legs and Meherbani — the 2014 song of love for some.

Thumbs down: Lewd jokes, loud acts from Anupam Kher, Annu Kapoor and Piyush Mishra.

t2 review: The charm of Shaukeen lay in the fact that the men in the middle didn’t allow the film to degenerate into a sleaze fest. The Shaukeens, however, tells and shows it as blatantly as it can — from the free use of Viagra to loose talk about women and sex, the three dirty rotten scoundrels do it all.

Verdict: FLOP

KILL/DIL

Release date: 14.11.2014

What: Shaad Ali attempted a Quentin Tarantino in the Indian heartland with two gangster buddies for whom killing is a way of life. Until one of them falls in love and wants to reform.

Thumbs up: Ranveer Singh, some action sequences, the title track sung by Shankar Mahadevan and Sonu Nigam.

Thumbs down: The been-there-done-that plot, Govinda’s half-hearted act, a miscast Ali Zafar.

t2 review: The plot is so thin, superficial and hackneyed that you are convinced that there’s some twist hidden in some corner but each one of the four characters stays unidimensional and uninteresting.

Verdict: FLOP

HAPPY ENDING

Release date: 21.11.2014

What: Even two Saif Ali Khans couldn’t save this rom com — trying to spoof the genre but ending up being formulaic — from vanishing from theatres within a week.

Thumbs up: Govinda’s winning act as an ageing superstar, the picture-perfect locales of San Francisco and Miami, Pritam’s peppy tracks led by G phaadke.

Thumbs down: Boring and banal, zero chemistry between Saif and Ileana D’Cruz, the cliched and convenient ending.

t2 review: Happy Ending is a strange beast. Zany and zingy in pieces, painfully predictable and boringly conventional in parts.

Verdict: FLOP

UNGLI

Release date: 28.11.2014

What: Disgruntled with the powers that be, a group of young friends turn self-styled vigilantes — taking on everyone from errant auto drivers to corrupt politicians.

Thumbs up: The finger-on-the-pulse premise, some ceetee-taali moments, the foot-tapping Dance Basanti.

Thumbs down: A flagging second half, looks dated in parts, cringe-worthy dialogues.

t2 review: Ungli has its heart in the right place, focusing on relevant issues that resonate with the viewer. But just good intentions do not a good film make.

Verdict: FLOP

ZID

Release date: 28.11.2014

What: Priyanka Chopra’s cousin Mannara made her debut in this erotic thriller as a woman obsessed with a man and the depths she is willing to plunge to in order to hold on to him.

Thumbs up: The picturesque Goa locales, some chilling moods and moments.

Thumbs down: More idiotic than erotic, more fizzle than sizzle, lacklustre performances.

Verdict: FLOP

ACTION JACKSON

Release date: 05.12.2014

What: Ajay Devgn in a double role, Sonakshi Sinha as a bimbette, debutant Manasvi Mamgai in perpetually orgasmic mode. This Prabhu Deva film was a painful watch, easily qualifying as one of the worst films of 2014.

Thumbs up: You must be joking!

Thumbs down: The whole film.

t2 review: The Prabhu Deva film is 145 minutes of sheer torture, a nightmare where you are stuck with two exactly similar Ajay Devgns, dumb dodos passing off as heroines, a permanently over-sexed vamp and a villain who has more grunts written into his script than dialogues.

Verdict: FLOP

MAIN AUR MR RIIGHT

Release date: 12.12.2014

What: Small-screen heart-throb Barun Sobti made his Bolly debut as a country bumpkin who has to pose as the smartass boyfriend of a city fashionista, played by Shenaz Treasury. Main Aur Mr Riight came and went within a week.

Thumbs up: An earnest Barun, the remixed version of the Bappi Lahiri hit Yaar bina chain kahaan re.

Thumbs down: The rest of the film.

Verdict: FLOP

UGLY

Release date: 26.12.2014

What: A young girl gets kidnapped from the front seat of her dad’s car. And then begins a roller-coaster ride where equations change at every turn and relationships are tested every minute.

Thumbs up: The hard-hitting and horrific premise, superb acts from the cast, Nikos Andritsakis’s camerawork

Thumbs down: Too dark and depressing, the climax.

t2 review: Ugly is testament to the fact that Anurag Kashyap’s forte lies in noir storytelling — No Smoking may have been a miss, but one only has to watch his unreleased film Paanch to know the delicious darkness the man can bring to his study of people, their principles and prejudice.

Verdict: FLOP

PK

Release date: 19.12.2014

What: The 3 Idiots team of Rajkumar Hirani and Aamir Khan created magic once more in this film about an alien (played by Aamir) who lands on earth, only to take on religious and cultural prejudices and challenge established forms of worship.

All heart, PK, on Friday, crossed the all-time blockbuster record set by Aamir’s own 2013 biggie Dhoom:3 to become Bolly’s biggest hit at a whopping Rs 278.78 crore!

Thumbs up: Aamir Khan, Aamir Khan, Aamir Khan, Raju Hirani’s assured direction, strong supporting acts from Anushka Sharma, Sanjay Dutt and Sushant Singh Rajput, some fun moods and moments, Ranbir Kapoor’s 30-second act as an alien.

Thumbs down: Formulaic  and preachy in parts.

t2 review: You are more likely to be just entertained rather than feel like bringing about a change in the world around you. And that would perhaps translate into a public success — and a personal failure — for our man Raju.

Verdict: ALL-TIME BLOCKBUSTER

Which was the best/worst film you watched between October and December? Tell t2@abp.in

FAST FORWARD TO Q1

TEVAR

Arjun Kapoor and Sonakshi Sinha team up for the first time in this masala entertainer set in the Uttar Pradesh heartland. Their rumoured  relationship has created a buzz around this Boney Kapoor production. Releases January 9.

ALONE

Bipasha Basu and Karan Singh Grover get it on — car bonnet to river bank to behind the bushes — in the red-hot promos of Alone, a horror fest in which the Ballygunge bombshell plays conjoined twins. Will their lip-lock-a-minute power Alone at the box office?
Find out on January 16.

BABY

The Special 26 team of Neeraj Pandey and Akshay Kumar come together for this patriotic thriller that also stars Danny Denzongpa, Anupam Kher, Rana Daggubati and Taapsee Pannu. Releases January 23.

DOLLY KI DOLI

Sonam Kapoor turns “looteri dulhan” in this Arbaaz Khan-produced rom com, releasing January 23, that stars Rajkummar Rao, Varun Sharma and Pulkit Samrat as her “victims” . The film’s fun promo and laugh-a-second lines have already grabbed eyeballs.

HAWAIZAADA

Ayushmann Khurrana plays Shivkar Bapuji Talpade, the man who is said to have constructed the world’s first unmanned plane in 1895, eight years before the Wright Brothers, but lived and died in oblivion. Hawaizaada also stars Mithun Chakraborty and Pallavi Sharda and releases January 30.

SHAMITABH

Amitabh Bachchan reunites with his Paa director R. Balki in this film that focuses on the life of a deaf and mute junior film artiste. Also starring Kolaveri di man Dhanush, Shamitabh marks the debut of Kamal Haasan’s daughter Akshara and hits screens on February 6. Piddly — sung by Big B sitting on the pot and using the bidet as a mic — is a hit already.

ROY

Ranbir Kapoor plays an art thief called Roy in this Vikramjit Singh film that has Arjun Rampal as the leading man and Jacqueline Fernandez in the dual roles of Ayesha and Tia. Releases February 13.

BADLAPUR

Chocolate boy Varun Dhawan goes dark with a vengeance in this February 20 thriller directed by Johnny Gaddaar man Sriram Raghavan. Huma Qureshi and Nawazuddin Siddiqui co-star in this blood-’n’-gore fest.

Which of these films is on your must-watch list? Tell t2@abp.in